Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 16/02) - Wireless communications continue to be accessible anywhere under the sun thanks to space-age satellite phones and their rescue from oblivion.

Danmax Communications Ltd.'s Danny Cimon shows off versions of today's satellite phones. - Thorunn Howatt/NNSL photo

The company that developed Iridium Satellite phones went bankrupt in 2000, leaving the North with a big hole in the communications department.

"Last spring a group of private investors bought the entire network, which was worth about $7 billion, for $25 million," said Infosat Telecommunication's Karin Micheelsen. Infosat is a distributor for Iridium satellite phones.

The purchase price included the entire network: 66 satellites already in orbit, a number of spare satellites, some pre-paid satellite launches and all of the company's assets.

Because of the density of the low-earth orbit satellites, virtually every point on the globe is covered. That reliability is what makes the phones so desirable in mining exploration, fishing, hunting, forestry, search and rescue and oil and gas.

The original Iridium marketing strategy was quite a bit different than that of the new company's.

Their prime market was the business traveller. They thought international business travellers would take the phones with them because they would work anywhere in the world.

"Well, that failed abysmally," said Micheelsen.

The phones were also much more expensive the first go round, she said.

"Really, they are best suited to people who are in industries or live in remote areas where there isn't land or cell service," she said.

The cost was also a huge factor in the original company's demise. Iridium needed millions of customers in order to make ends meet but at the time of its financial woes, it had only 60,000. "Because they had just spent billions to put the system up there,"said Micheelsen.

The new Iridium company took over at the bargain basement price with no debt and with the 60,000 customers that it now needed in order to break even already in place.

The real deal-maker though was the fact that the U.S. Department of Defence was still using the product. It is the primary subscriber, with a five-year contract and 20,000 customers.

"It's a very expensive technology and its selling like hotcakes," said Yellowknife company Danmax Communications Ltd.'s Danny Cimon. The sales did not come close to cellular's, he said.

"They are very good. The units are getting smaller and smaller," said Cimon, who described them as being similar in size to a walkie-talkie.

The unit will work as long as the user is outside, but it won't transmit through a metal building.

"You can get a lot of accessories, antennae to go on the car and battery chargers," said Cimon.

The latest Iridium model sells for under $2,500 but older models go for much cheaper.

The territorial government bought some of the units during the millennium scare in 1999.

"There were a lot of purchases at that time," said Cimon. The phones aren't used constantly but are kept for an emergency backup, he said.