DoT nod for Iridium plan

With the DoT clearance, Iridium India will now proceed to obtain required permission to import handsets as well as necessary approvals to establish interconnection with existing terrestrial networks in order to conduct the much-needed subscriber trials, prior to commercialising services in India and SouthAsia.

Iridium which will be launched at 1300 hrs GMT 1830 hrs IST on November 1, 1998 will be the world8217;s first global, hand held telephone service that enables customers to make and receive calls from anywhere on the earth.

Iridium India Telecom is a joint venture between a consortium of Indian financial institutions and the network management group of Motorola Inc of USA. The Iridium system is a global wireless communications network that will combine the world-wide reach of 66 low-earth orbit satellites with land-based wireless systems to enable subscribers to communicate using hand-held telephones and pagers virtually anywhere in the world.