Ironically, this proved to be the ideal market segment for Iridium India's satellite phones which, unlike mobile phones or the conventional methods of telephony, do not require any on-land infrastructure except the handset."Currently, there are close to 40 Iridium handsets in use in Orissa region for disaster relief work undertaken by various agencies including government and industries," a senior Iridium India official told The Financial Express.

The company had also supplied its instruments, on rent or sale, to the Department of telecommunications (DoT) and to corporate CEOs looking for a reliable mode of connectivity. This is not a small achievement if one compares it with the fact that the company had managed to sell only about 225 handsets in the country till September 1999.

For Iridium, this is some sort of a repeat performance. Iridium Inc had `given' about 500 handsets to various government and non-government agencies during the last cyclone in the US. Of this lot, 400 were returned to the company and Iridium gained almost a hundered new subscribers. A similar outcome could be expected in India as well.

"Iridium India has, in the past, provided government relief organisations and workers with Iridium handsets and pagers, alongwith free airtime for use in the earthquake devastated regions of Uttar Pradesh in March 1999," Iridium said.

Industry sources added that even though some of the handsets in use in Orissa will eventually be returned to the company, it leads to two distinct advantages for the company. "One of course is the rental payments and the new subscribers. With the average handset usage time of 177-180 minutes/month, which is considered `high' by international standards, the rent itself will be significant. However, the biggest fillip is the fact that satellite phones proved the last link during the catastrophe. This will aid the company in gaining fresh grounds in its efforts to rope in subscribers from the railways, Indian army and the oil, ports and transportation sectors," sources said.

In fact, Iridium India has already been asked to set up a pilot network in the city of Bhubaneshwar to assist the government's relief work, sources said.