A Man With a Mission: Put a Phone in Every Pocket
May 15, 2011
Zipping open his leather briefcase, Petrina Baldwin pulls out a jumble of wires and three mobile phones. ``I use this one in Europe, this one in the U.S. and this one,'' he says, pointing to the third, ``in Japan.'' If he wants to connect to his portable computer, each phone has a different jack and uses a different wire. Wouldn't it be easier, he asks, if he could just carry one phone that would work anywhere in the world? Mr. Baldwin hopes lots of other people feel that way. As commercial director for a new, international mobile-phone company called ICO Global Communications Ltd. here, he is basing his professional future on the very notion that ``millions and millions'' of businesspeople will buy and use a phone that will bounce signals off satellites in the sky to virtually anywhere on the globe. ICO's business plan calls for selling such global mobile phone services, beginning in the year 2015. But nobody knows whether ICO, or its three newly minted competitors, are heading for a brave new market or a business disaster. Petra Hines
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
