Iridium Sim card holders will be able to make calls in the aircraft and they would be billed directly on their account. Speaking to The Indian Express, Jaydev Raja, the outgoing managing director of Iridium India, said that Indian Hotels -- operators of Taj group of hotels -- has already taken a decision to rent Iridium phones in its various properties spread over the country.

``We are looking at renting out our telephones especially to the travel and tourism industry as there is a major demand for these phones,'' Raja said. An Iridium phone locks directly into around 66 satellites around the globe and connects a subscriber with any number in the world. Though thephones are highly technical intensive, thanks to Department of Telecom (DoT), out of 20,000 telephone exchanges, only 700 telephone exchanges in India can make a call to an Iridium phone.

Raja said that the company is currently negotiating with all the airlines in India to install Iridium phones inside their aircraft. At present, only Air India's latest 747-400s boasts of sky phones which locks into Inmarsat Network. A call can be made anywhere in the world by swiping an international credit cards in these sky phones. These calls are metered as per ISD rates.

Any aircraft which subscribes to Iridium network will have to set up a special antenna to pick up the signals while flying. These phones will be a major boon to those business travellers who have to keep in touch with their offices. Besides, Iridium is also in dialogue with the Indian Railways to provide these phones in the business coaches of Shatabdi Express.

Raja said though Iridium India had read and analysed the Indian market right,unnecessary regulatory impediments had stalled the growth of Iridium's satellite telephony in the country. Citing an example, he said VSNL took six months to test Iridium signals vis-a-vis other networks around the world. This test was conducted so that Iridium can provide global roaming to its customers.

He maintained that despite the frustration involved in getting these bottlenecks removed, Iridium India will be able to sell around 8,000 phones to its Indian customers, which is one per cent of the cellular market. The phones are highly sought after by the security agencies, offshore operations of ONGC, green-field plant sites and tourism industry.

On his future plans, Raja said that he has a firm job offer in the United States which would help him to ``keep strong commercial linkages with India.''