Sky Dayton's New Flight Plan
Sky Dayton's New Flight PlanSky Dayton's New Flight Plan
EarthLink's founder explains how he'll bring cutting-edge wireless services to the U.S. with South Korean partner SK Telecom
Sky Dayton has done his spell as the tech industry's wunderkind. He founded the Internet service provider EarthLink (ELNK ) in the 1990s when he was in his 20s. It became one of the most popular ISPs in the country and ultimately went public. EarthLink finished last year with more than $1.4 billion in revenues.
Now at the ripe old age of 33, Dayton is moving on. He has become chief executive of a joint venture that EarthLink has formed with SK Telecom, a wireless player from South Korea. Funded with $440 million, half from each company, the venture will launch its wireless service in the U.S. early next year. The idea is that SK EarthLink (the name it's using until it unveils its own new brand) will bring the sophisticated wireless services now common in Korea to the U.S. market. That will include music, games, TV, video clips, and more.
Dayton will use the networks of Sprint (FON ) and Verizon Wireless to deliver the services. Essentially, he'll buy capacity on their networks at wholesale costs and then resell service at retail rates. He plans to use phones similar to those available in Korea, with hard drives for storing tunes and TV programs as well as crystal-clear screens for baseball highlights or computer games. And he's developing complementary Web services to provide cutting-edge content.
ALL-STAR ROSTER. SK EarthLink will make public some of the details of its new venture on June 22. The company will be headquartered in Los Angeles, not terribly surprising since that's where Dayton has been working with EarthLink. The announcement will also identify some of the members of the senior executive team.
They'll include a number of top-flight names, from SK and mobile-phone maker Motorola (MOT ).
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