Before Wi-Fi was everywhere, a business traveler who wanted email abroad had to find a local dial-up number or pay for an expensive call home. GRIC built an alliance of internet providers around the world so their customers could log on through one another. When it filed to go public in late 1999, mobile workers were multiplying. Laptops were becoming standard business equipment.

Roaming, Borrowed From Phones

GRIC bet that the internet needed roaming, the way mobile phones did. It signed up providers in many countries and handled the settlement between them. A customer of one provider could log on through another and get billed at home. Small providers could offer global reach without building networks abroad. GRIC sat in the middle as the clearing house, and it earned a share of each connection.

GoRemote, Then iPass

GRIC priced at $14 a share in December 1999. As corporate laptops spread, the company shifted from serving internet providers to selling remote access directly to big companies. Its customers were mostly large firms with traveling staff. It renamed itself GoRemote Internet Communications in 2004. The larger rival iPass had long chased the same travelers. In 2006 iPass completed an all-cash purchase of GoRemote worth about $76.5 million.

Cover: Map of the World: Tradewinds, Bernardi Sylvani. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a map of the world and its tradewinds (dial in from anywhere).