Stratos has developed a strong network of local dealerships in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, the east coast ports of Russia, Thailand, and Taiwan. The company is finalizing agreements with local agents in Japan, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Brunei and Papua New Guinea.

The newly appointed Stratos dealers have proven experience and long standing relationships with users of mobile satellite services, particularly in the shipping, fishing, government and mining sectors. The role of Stratos dealers is to sell Iridium handsets, provide technical support for customer handsets and sign up customer airtime contracts through Stratos Global Corporation.

Mr Michael P Smith, Vice President, Asia Pacific, for Stratos Global Corporation explained that local agents are best placed to reach end customers due to their local market knowledge and existing relationships with end users of satellite communications services.

"We are dealing with thousands of different geographical locations with diverse cultures, languages, religions, economic environments and regulatory regimes," he said. "We rely on our experienced Stratos dealers to localize our promotional collateral and to tailor the delivery of Stratos' Iridium service to best suit local markets."

Mr Smith said the Iridium service is ideal for the Asia Pacific market due to the high volume of fishing and shipping activity in the region and the large areas of land mass which do not have GSM cellular coverage or terrestrial telecommunications services.

"Our Asia Pacific dealers have already been swamped by previous Iridium customers who want to reconnect to the service," he said. "There is no other mobile service which provides complete coverage of the region."

Stratos is already working closely with its dealer network throughout the region, having arranged joint customer seminars, developed multi-lingual promotional materials and attended numerous customer visits with dealers in each country.

"We have also established a regional customer call center with capabilities in all the major Asian languages," he said.

The Iridium service was relaunched internationally in April this year, after new investors (Iridium Satellite LLC) purchased the operation for around $US 25 million. The original investors are said to have spent more than $US 8 billion creating the Iridium network.

The Iridium service provides cheap satellite voice calling to and from anywhere in the world at a flat rate of US $1.50 per minute, using a handset weighing less than 500 grams. Global coverage for the Iridium service is provided by 66 low-earth orbiting low-earth-orbiting satellites. The service also supports 2.4kbps data capability and will facilitate 10kbps later this year.

Calling prices have been slashed from as high as $US 11 per minute down to as low as $US 50 cents per minute for the relaunched Iridium service. Handset prices have also been reduced significantly to as low as $US 495 for a refurbished Motorola 9500 model.

Stratos has been a specialist provider of remote area communications solutions for more than a decade, providing advanced telecommunications services for businesses operating outside of cellular and terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure.

"Our business is built on an intimate understanding of the unique communication requirements of the shipping, fishing, mining, oil & gas, government, media and aid sectors," said Mr Michael Smith, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Stratos Global Corporation.

Of course, many of the new dealers throughout the Asia Pacific region will also market Stratos' broader range of remote area communications solutions, such as Inmarsat satellite services throughout the region.

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