Dot Drags Feet On Iridium Licence Terms

The world's first global mobile personal communications system, the Iridium project, may not be able to start services in India by November 1, the date set for its international launch. The department of telecommunications (DoT) is yet to finalise terms and conditions of the licence agreement for the project.

The 66 satellite project will offer voice, data, fax and paging services to subscribers with telephones and pagers anywhere in the world. It is the first of such systems, with competitors like ICO and Globalstar expected to start services by 1999 and 2001, respectively.

The satellite telephony company was issued a letter of intent on September 24. This was seen as the first step towards signing the licence agreement. DoT mentioned in the letter that it would finalise the licence pact by November 1.

A committee set up to study issues before finalising the satellite telephone licence agreement met yesterday to work towards the deadline. However, sources said it is unlikely to finalise the agreement due to certain stumbling blocks.

Global mobile communication projects, including Iridium, are unwilling to pay the high licence fees set by the DoT. A source said, "The projects are structured on 7-8 per cent net profit. How can they pay 16 per cent of revenue as licence fees?"

Also, a call from satellite phone is linked directly to a satellite and carried to its destination through other satellites. In doing so, it bypasses the traditional international gateway of telecom networks, thereby rendering monitoring systems useless.

Another issue relates to frequency interference. For example, the Iridium system operates on 1616-26 mega hertz (mhz) band that is very close to the 1610 mhz frequency used by the radio telescope in Pune.

Also, with the transfer of former communications minister Sushma Swaraj to the Delhi government, a new hurdle has come up.

"With no minister, it is going to be difficult to get the project cleared. Besides, telecom secretary Anil Kumar and member finance of the telecom commission A Prasad are travelling," an official said.