Raja, who had launched Iridium's services in the country last year, told The Financial Express that even though the Indian arm had, unlike the global parent, read the market right, regulatory impediments had stalled the growth of Iridium's satellite telephony.

He maintained that despite the frustration involved in getting these bottlenecks removed, his decision to quit was entirely personal. His resignation also had nothing to do with the spate of financial troubles that Iridium is globally facing. Some top Iridium officials recently quit amid reports of the satellite company being in a financial mess after reading the market wrongly.

In a candid conversation, Raja said, "When I came to India seven years back with Coke, I came with theintention of making the country my home. I never thought I would go back to the US. But fate has had it otherwise."

"One must admit, unlike globally, Iridium in India read the market right. We realised that industry, and not the individual globetrotter, was the market for (Iridium services) and we structured our distribution in such a manner. The problem in India has been regulatory hurdles," said Raja.

"Even today, an Iridium user in India can make calls anywhere in the world to a satellite, cellular or a land line phone. But he cannot receive calls from a cellular or land line phone. Reason: DoT has not been able to programme its 20,000 exchanges to the Iridium code. It has sent letters to all these exchanges and after repeated followups we have been able to get the facility at just 700 exchanges," he said.

"The other issue pertains to global roaming. Due to lack of a certification from VSNL, an Iridium user cannot go abroad and use the phone on a cellular mode as a signal test has not been conducted.Now, DoT has given the approval to VSNL to carry out the half-an-hour test but only for a month," Raja said.

"This practically makes it impossible for us to go and actually enroll subscribers as they all say that they would do so only once these hurldes are cleared. There is a tremendous market here. During the recent fire at the ONGC rig, we supplied Iridium phones and they worked fine. But they could not receive calls. Industry would see value in these phones but factors beyond our control are holding us back. It is frustrating," said Raja.

"But one must say that one took up the Iridium job as a challenge and the organisation has done an outstanding job. Some seed sales have been made and we hope to do better in the future. As far as I am aware, none of our shareholders has expressed an intention to withdraw from the venture," said Raja.