SATPHONES: Is There a Demand?

It is a
year now since Iridium India Telecom Ltd (IITL) started in India
but the company is yet to start services in some of the neighboring
countries that the Indian gateway caters to. IITL was very aggressive
in starting its India operations resulting in timely start of
Iridium services in the country. Had that same urgency and aggressiveness
been shown outside the Indian borders, it would have started
its services in those countries simultaneously or within a month
or two later.

The Iridium
gateway located at Pune in India caters to Nepal, Bhutan, Sri
Lanka, Bangladesh, and Maldives. Maldives has taken the lead
and the services started long back. In Sri Lanka the services
will start very soon as IITL has got the licence to operate
GMPCS service in the country. Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh
still have a long way to go before GMPCS becomes a reality there.
The Iridium phones that can be seen in those countries in the
hands of tourists mainly are registered world-wide, not in a
particular country. Even the signals go to the gateway where
the satphone is registered. The people of such countries cannot
use Iridium phone and even the tourists cannot avail of this
facility whenever they feel the need, if they don''t have world-wide
registration earlier.

These countries offer immense and diverse opportunities in satphone
services. A casual peep will tell how they can effectively use
the satphones in their country.

Bangladesh
is frequently devastated by natural calamities like routine
floods during the summer monsoon and cyclones, which brings
all communications to a halt. The country is rich in natural
gas and companies like ONGC Videsh, which are very active in
this segment, need to communicate from far flung oil wells.
Disaster relief works and oil-based projects will require satphones
for faster and effective communication.

Bhutan is
mainly a difficult hilly terrain where providing communications
is an extremely difficult task. Moreover, the telephone lines
that are available are few in numbers and of poor quality. With
70 percent of the land area under forest cover, the country
is rich in vegetation. The country has a number of hydropower
projects as the country has high hydropower potential.

The World
Bank is involved is infrastructure activities like road construction,
telecom, and power-generation sponsors a multitude of projects.
Iridium can focus on these. Wood related industries, which are
in the vicinity of forests, can be effectively manned using
a satphone. Satphones can also be given on lease for foreign
tourist visiting Bhutan, thereby, providing effective communication
links. Unfortunately, the government, as a matter of policy,
allows a maximum of only four thousand tourists per year to
minimize foreign influence.Nepal, the
ancient Himalayan Kingdom is visited by lot of foreign tourists
because of its breath-taking scenic beauty and trekking options.
The country is also rich in hydropower projects. The trekkers
require satphones to communicate to the base station about their
movement in the unknown wilderness. They can use it for moving
in the forest area and while moving in difficult terrain where
no conventional communication facility is available.

Sri Lanka
has vast stretches of rubber and tea plantations. Lots of foreign
tourists also visit the country. Satphones could also be effectively
used for combating terrorism and for communicating from the
rubber and tea gardens, which are located in remote hilly areas.

Maldives
with 70 tourist resorts, is the ideal tourists'' paradise. The
country consists of many small islands isolated with vast stretches
of water. Cable telephony is not a very viable and effective
means of connecting these islands for communication purposes.
Satphones could be the best alternative in such a geographical
scenario.