The company has decided to ramp up "vertical market" (industrial market) by redoubling its marketing efforts in the area, according to TK Sridharan, senior vice-president of the company.

"Hitherto, we laid a lot of emphasis on pushing GMPCS service to individual globe-trotters at the cost of the vertical market which we now realise has a lot of untapped potential," he said on the sidelines of an open house organised by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) here on Thursday.

The vertical market comprising the railways, oil and natural gas companies and mining companies logged an average airtime of 200 minutes per month per company compared to only 50 minutes per month per individual, he said.

"We are targeting these companies as they requireremote communication for operational purposes," Sridharan said, adding, "in this business, airtime usage gets reflected on a company's bottomline than number of handsets sold."IITL, which cut handset-to-fixed-receiver call charge from Rs 195 per minute to Rs 150 per minute and the handset-to-handset call charge to Rs 100 about four months ago, has about 225 handset users in the country, Sridharan said.

On Iridium filing for protection under Chapter 11 of the US law, he pointed out that it had been forced by banks' enforcing covenants in the face of restructuring in the company. "Our global restructuring plan will be reflected on our Indian business," he said, adding, the restructuring had not affected their Indian operations.

Sridharan said financial institutions led by the industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), which holds 80 per cent in IITL and has contributed $70 million Iridium LLC (about 3.7 per cent of its capital) had a definite role to play in its restructuring.