India will soon have its own dedicated satellite for providing satellite phone (satphone) services, instead of depending on foreign satellites. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is launching a satellite next year which will carry a large S-band transponder to help India provide its own signals for satellite phones.

“We are in the process of building a high-beam antenna which will be deployed on board a satellite for providing satellite phone (satphone) services using S-band transponder. We can connect handheld devices when it is launched in a year or so,” former Indian space agency chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters on the sidelines of the India Semiconductor Association’s (ISA’s) Vision Summit here last Monday. ISRO has already designed the antenna that will be mounted on the spacecraft for dedicated satphone services. Once launched, India will become a major player in use of satellite phones and this might also help bring down the cost of satellite phone services.