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.