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Chandler Telecom Inc.
"Planetary Communications"
In 1990, a miniature mom-and-
pop telecommunications company was born. This
birth was a direct result of the downsizing of a
large company which will, for the purposes of this
article, simply be referred to as "Fortune 10".
Operated at its inception out of the basement of
the owners residence, on Global Court, the mini-
company, Global Communications Group, began with
two employees, Robert Colee and his wife Anne.
There were just two customers: a medium sized
company and a fortune 500 company. Global not only
repaired and refurbished "Fortune 10" telephone
systems but it managed to achieve this at lower
prices, quicker turn-around time, and an absense
of the red tape which typically plagued bigger
companies. Word of Global's fast, accurate,
inexpensive, personalized service gradually
spread. Soon Global had many customers and some
new employees. The first new employees were
garnered, for the most part, from the Colee's
friends and family and other slightly disrgruntled
ex-Fortune 10 employees. If you can't join them
fight them!!! Like its biblical counterpart,
David, little Global put up a good fight against
many of the Goliath-like inequities besetting
bigger companies. Of course, being only human,
Global made its share of mistakes. It had the same
problems with office politics and faulty company
alliances that beset virtually all companies, at
one time or another. Through all adversities,
through all times, good and bad, Global managed to
prevail. In 1992 Global incorporated. With an eye
to getting accounts in the ex-Soviet Union,
particularly Russia, Global worked with many
American companies to form strategic alliances in
Russia, especially in the field of
telecommunications. Global published a bilingual
newspaper, "The Global Communicator". The Colees
wrote a series of articles,
"The Russian Adventure", detailing some of
their findings. Colee made a business trip over to
Russia, spending one week, each, in Moscow and St.
Petersburg. After Global had made tenative joint
ventures with two companies in Russia, the bottom
fell out of the Russian economy, making it
impracticle for Global to continue its business
plans with the country. Incidently, the technology
which Global proposed in 1993, for Russian
telecommunications, was later allowed for
implementation in the United States
Telecommunications Act of 1996. Global carried on,
moving out of the Colee's residence, and into its
own building, in 1994. In the next couple of
years, Global was doing well enough financially,
so that it decided to expand its business into
other avenues. Global rented a second building.
The Colees set up three businesses in the new
building: a new-age bookstore, "Camelot's Curios",
a motorcycle shop, "Superbikes", and a plant
shop, "The Garden of Eden". The new building
opened in the summer of 1996, just on time for the
Atlanta Olympics. Also on time for the 1996
Olympics, Global created web sites for its parent
company, the three new companies and a site
called. "Mars Colonization". In the next couple
of years,"Camelot's" and the "Garden of Eden" were
closed for personal and financial
reasons. "Superbikes", which had been around in
various forms (albeit, sometimes on a figurative
back burner) since the early '70's, eventually
merged with Chandler Motercycles Inc." All of the
Global web sites, however remained on the Internet
(and do, to this day). In November, 1998, Global
sold the telecommunications part of its business.
In March 2000, the buyers of Global decided as far
as the "Fortune 10" product line went, they only
wanted to work on the HCX products. They paid up
their outstanding note to the Colees. They left
the Colees free to work on the "Fortune 10" DX series PABX Telephones, HD200, and EX10 products.The Colees signed a two year
non-compete clause barring them from working
on "Fortune 10" HCX products. The same
agreement
also barred them from using the "Global" name for
their "Fortune 10" business, for the same time
period. Presently, the former "Global
Communications Group" has a new name: Planetary
Communications". It operates out of the Colee's
residence, as it did at its birth. Though
Planetary still repairs and refurbishes "Fortune
10" machines, it is now focusing on Internet,
Intranet, Voice Mail, and Fax-on Demand
services.
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