Denver- Clint Fayling sits in a coffee shop near LoDo gripping a cell phone that can pull up images of models clad in lingerie and download ring tones that would make a sailor blush.

The Denver-based entrepreneur hopes that the risque wireless phone features, and much more provocative ones at some point soon, will be as popular as a grande latte. Fayling’s fledgling outfit, Brickhouse Mobile, is working with pornography purveyors and other companies to deliver sexually explicit material – including ring tones, wallpaper and video – to mobile users. Boulder-based New Frontier Media is one partner.

In Europe, South America and elsewhere around the world, such content is hardly unusual. Anything goes.

It’s just getting started in the U.S., and critics are likely to fight the trend, but like it or not, pornography has moved beyond the realm of magazines, home movies and the Internet.

Brickhouse Mobile already has deals with companies such as Vodafone to bring everything from pictures of naked women to hard-core porn videos to cell phones overseas, he said.

“In the U.S. it’s a different story,” he said. “There is great interest, and great hesitation. Carriers need to balance what will sell with the concerns of their subscribers.”

For now, the content on American soil will be limited. Consumers will be able to see actresses doing strip teases, for instance, but the images will stop just short of full nudity.

The wallpaper pictures in the U.S. at this early juncture are akin to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Fayling, a 41-year-old businessman and Michigan native, said the mainstream publication’s highly anticipated annual magazine may be even racier and more revealing.

Brickhouse has reached pacts with a few smaller cell-phone service providers – we’re not talking about the Sprints, Verizons, the T-Mobiles of the world – to test the content with subscribers.

Several million people in the U.S., just a small sliver of the North American market, can find the material through these trials, he said.

Brickhouse Mobile doesn’t make the content. It just helps steer the material to the next location.

The company aims to “mobilize” the brands of adult-content producers, formatting them for cell phones.

Fayling trusts that the material will gradually find a wider audience as more providers agree to serve it up, and that increasing demand will drive more technological innovation in the sector.

Eventually, the material now available in the U.S. may seem tame. When the sexual content seen on mobile phones abroad hits American shores in the future, Fayling will be ready.

“Adult content is huge across the board, whether you’re in Germany or Iowa,” he says. “What we’ve learned is that what will work on the Internet will work on the mobile, too. There’s no doubt it will be successful. It’s just a matter of time.”

Brickhouse, which is less than a year old, is satisfied to see the evolution unfold slowly. Fayling says he is part of an effort to establish tough safeguards to protect children. Credit cards could be used as one way to verify a user’s age, he says.

“We don’t want to be renegades,” Fayling says. “We will play by the rules.”

The company, whose name Brickhouse was inspired by the 1977 Commodores’ song of the same name, announced recently it would work with porn producer Wicked Pictures on a wireless plan to develop and distribute wallpaper images and video. Porn stars Devinn Lane, Sydnee Steele, Julia Ann, Stormy, Jessica Drake and Kaylani Lei will have leading roles.

The agreement comes on the heels of a pact with Boulder-based New Frontier Media. Part of that deal calls for the delivery of ring tones, or “moans” as they are called, featuring porn stars groaning suggestively.

That option is more of a “novelty” that college students might purchase, but naturally not the kind of ring someone would want interrupting a business meeting.

Groups such as the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families have expressed worries about the spread of graphic pictures on cell phones. They see that as a danger to American youth.

In a statement on its Web site, the coalition called it “irresponsible to seek profits” by promoting adult content, yet Brickhouse has vowed to do everything possible to keep the material away from children.

If Janet Jackson’s breast being exposed on national television sparks an outcry and expletives throughout the film Saving Private Ryan stir such strong emotions, the companies leading the wireless charge are likely to draw some heat.

Fayling notes that adult content on cell phones will never be available for all to see. Viewers will look at it privately, in the same way that they watch pornographic movies at home and in hotels.

“The adult movie industry outsells the mainstream movie industry,” he says. “Why does that happen? It thrives because it’s private.”

“The public has spoken with their wallets,” adds Fayling, who in two weeks is moving his operations out of his apartment and into a LoDo office.

Playboy Enterprises said late last year it planned to expand distribution of its content on cell phones in the U.S. Playboy already offers wireless entertainment services in a number of spots around the world, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil.

The industry “is watching this closely and looking to stay ahead of it,” said Joe Farren, spokesman for CTIA, The Wireless Association, the trade group for the mobile-phone sector.

The group soon plans to publish a rating system for its members that will help them sift through all the adult content and will try to make parents aware of filtering systems they can use to shelter their children, Farren said.

Fayling wants to be endorsed by all the wireless carriers. But it’s unknown whether major service providers will formally approve adult entertainment.

Sprint, in just one example, has refused to sanction adult entertainment or offer it in any way, though subscribers, in many cases, will be able to surf around and find the material from providers who aren’t affiliated with the carriers.

Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics tempered some of the optimism about the content on mobile phones, saying in a March report that the demand will largely be met by the Internet at home.

But even they acknowledged the growth potential, saying adult material on mobile phones – a $400 million business in 2004 – could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2010.

More American cell-phone companies will feel comfortable allowing their subscribers to download adult video and wallpaper, Fayling predicts.

Nudity and more graphic content aren’t far behind, he adds.

“You know, no one wants to be first,” he says. “But a lot of people want to be second.”

• What it does: Calls itself a “mobile solution provider” for the adult entertainment industry. The Denver company aims to deliver adult content to the “largest possible worldwide market” via wireless phones and, at the same time, work to develop standards and to shelter children from the material.

• CEO: Clint Fayling

• The name: Comes from the 1977 Commodores’ song

• Brickhouse deals: The company has a five-year agreement with Wicked Pictures to deliver adult content featuring porn stars such as Devinn Lane, Sydnee Steele and Kaylani Lei, and another pact with Boulder-based New Frontier Media to bring celebrity voice tones, wallpaper and adult video to mobile phones.

• Cost: “Sexy” ring tones would cost between $1.50 and $2.50, adult wallpaper would fetch $2 to $3 and video would be more expensive depending on the run time.

• Industry outlook: Mobile phone adult services are expected to generate $5 billion in revenue in 2010, up from $400 million in 2004, according to Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics.

• Critics: The National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, which is fighting the wireless adult-content trend and seeks to “protect our youth from the insidious impact of sexualized content in all its forms.”