Helio CEO leaves job to president (AP)

NEW YORK - Sky Dayton, the founder and chief executive of Helio LLC, is stepping down as CEO to become chairman of the youth-oriented cell-phone provider.

Dayton, who also founded the Internet service provider EarthLink Inc., will be replaced at Helio by Wonhee Sull, formerly the company's president and chief operating officer.

Helio is a joint venture of EarthLink and South Korean phone company SK Telecom Co., and is an attempt to bring the high-end handsets and sophisticated data applications that are popular in Korea to a U.S. audience.

As chairman, Dayton replaces Jinwoo So, president of global business at SK Telecom. Sull comes from the research and design side of the phone company.

"Helio has reached a point in its development where I feel the timing is right for this change ... As we have for the past three years, the two of us will continue to define Helio's direction and future," Dayton said Monday in a statement.

Dayton "loves to start things, build teams and brands" and then turn over day-to-day management to others, said Helio spokeswoman Brooke Hammerling.

Dayton also founded Boingo Wireless Inc., and remains chairman of the company. It sells access to Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas.

Helio, which launched in May 2006, said it now has "nearly" 200,000 subscribers, who pay an average of more than $85 a month. That's higher than the industry average, but Helio has still contributed to losses at EarthLink.

SK Telecom said last year it decided to invest an additional $270 million in Helio, cutting EarthLink's ownership share to about 22 percent.

Helio is operating with a business model that's proved very difficult for other companies. It doesn't have its own cellular towers. Instead, it buys wholesale access to Sprint Nextel Corp.'s high-speed network, making it a so-called "mobile virtual network operator," or MVNO.

A number of other companies have used the MVNO business model, and success stories are few. Amp'd Mobile, ESPN Mobile and Disney Mobile have all shut down. Virgin Mobile USA Inc. is doing better, but it's far larger than Helio, with more than 4.8 million subscribers.

In addition, Apple Inc.'s iPhone last year set the standard for the high-end data-friendly cell phone. More than 2 million iPhones are in operation on AT&T Inc.'s network, just six months after launch.

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On the Net:

http://www.helio.com