I have been contemplating moving from India to the US for quite some time. I had informed the shareholders about my intentions even before the commercialisation. But we were in the midst of getting the licence and operationalisation of commercial services. We agreed to get all these things behind us before I left for the US. It was also very important that we got all the necessary clearances in regulations (post-licence) fromauthorities.It is true that Iridium is going through some trying times the world over.

The problem has been that the business models were developed under a hypothesis that the professional traveller would be the key market for Iridium services. And therefore, they mandated a distribution within the cellular coverage. In reality, the market was the remote area industry oil exploration, mining, power generation...These industries are by the very definition outside the cellular coverage. There is an obvious mismatch between market and distribution network. This is the single biggest problem Iridium has faced.

But you have said India followed a different model?

The problems we faced in India were not because of this. We did our own research and correctly identified industries as the market. However, contractually we were obligated to establish distribution in the cellular coverage because that was what was required by the parent affiliate.

We signed up cellular operators and got 100 per centmarket access way ahead of most of the world. However, based on our research we established (we were one of the first) a direct sales force. We were also one of the first to establish a channel partner network to provide after-sales service. We are not really a cellular company -- we are a communications firm providing remote area communication.

What were the problems?

Our problem has been pure and simple: regulatory delays. Today, if you look at Iridium's provisional licence, DoT is obligated to provide us interconnection with the terrestrial network -- land-line phones and cell phones. The ONGC had this fire in their offshore rig and they requisitioned four phones from us to help in relief operations.

They were able to establish critical communication from the middle of the ocean to their onshore locations. They were able to make phone calls from Iridium phones to the onshore locations, phone calls from one Iridium handset to another Iridum handset, but they were unable to receive calls fromtheir onshore locations to offshore. And that was because of the voids in the interconnection DoT was supposed to give us. We don't have to go to all the 20,000 DoT exchanges and tell them to accommodate Iridium accessibility which is what we are being made to do.

DoT can mandate all the exchanges to do it but they have not done so. It has been over six months of follow-up and we have been able to open up only 700 exchanges. ONGC told us they would require 300-400 of our phones but not until they get interconnectivity. They are right why should they pay for something when they are not getting complete communication?

Santosh Yadav went to Mt Everest with two phones and one pager. She called the PM before starting on the expedition and on reaching the peak. But if the PM wanted to call her, it would not have been possible. We cannot dramatically increase our sales till such time this interconnection is opened up. We have identified the market, we know how to serve that market, but we are unable tosell.

How long will it be before this bottleneck is removed?

We have met with the TRAI. On May 25, we made a big presentation to them. TRAI has agreed that DoT is obligated to provide interconnection. They have asked us to make a legal representation for them to intervene to expedite this connectivity and we are in the process of doing that. As to when it will happen, your guess is good as mine. What we are doing now is prioritising. We get the exchanges our customers need and ask them to accommodate Iridium accessibility.

Will you go to court?

If we wanted to live by the legal word we would have done that a long time ago. Does it help? We have to live with DoT. Cellular operators are unable to sell Iridium services to their subscribers who want global cross-protocol roaming. There has to be a common signal between the international telecom carrier in India, which is VSNL (who also operates and maintains our gateway), and Swisscom, the global carrier appointed by Iridium to transit allglobal traffic of different protocols into telecom carriers of the world.

This signalling linkage has to be established between VSNL and Swisscom. Ever since we commenced service in November 1, we have been requesting VSNL to conduct a half-an-hour test to establish this linkage. VSNL has been unable to conduct this test because they require DoT permission. We have no official locus standi because it is a linkage issue to be done by the operators. But we kept following it up. Finally, DoT issued a temporary permit for only one month in April. How can we ask the customer to buy our service based on a one-month permit? Until the permit becomes permanent we cannot go to the customer.

To what extent have your targets for India been affected?

Our target is to reach 1 per cent of the cellular market leading up to 5 per cent by the end of the fifth year. That continues to remain our target even now. With the delays, we think we will probably be one year late.