AboveNet was a provider of high

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

telecommunication circuit A telecommunication circuit is a path in a telecommunications network used to transmit information. Circuits have evolved over time from generally being built on physical connections between individual hardware cables, as in an analog phone swi ...

s primarily for large corporate enterprises and communications carriers in 17 markets in the United States and 4 markets in Europe. Its private optical network delivered key network and IP services and was used in financial and legal services, media, health care, retail, and government. The company was formerly named Metromedia Fiber Network and changed its name to AboveNet in 2003 after emerging from bankruptcy. Before its bankruptcy in 2002, the company was financially backed by

John Kluge John Werner Kluge (; September 21, 1914September 7, 2010) was a German-American entrepreneur who became a television industry mogul in the United States. At one time he was the richest person in the U.S. Early life and education Kluge was bo ...

and

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

. In 2012, the company was acquired by

Zayo Group Zayo Group Holdings, Inc., or Zayo Group, is a privately held company headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, U.S. with European headquarters in London, England. The company provides communications infrastructure services, including fiber and band ...

for $2.2 billion in cash.

History

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The company was founded in 1993 as AboveNet, by founde
Sherman Tuan
It initially focused 'one-hop' internet connectivity and providing

dark fiber A dark fibre or unlit fibre is an unused optical fibre, available for use in fibre-optic communication. Dark fibre may be leased from a network service provider. Dark fibre originally referred to the potential network capacity of telecommunic ...

to communications carrier customers in the U.S. and Europe. In 1997, the company changed its name to Metromedia Fiber Network. In 1999, Metromedia acquired Abovenet Communications, including its subsidiary

PAIX ''Paix'' is the fourth studio album by French singer Catherine Ribeiro and her third with the band Alpes. It was originally released in 1972 by Philips Records. The album integrates the group's original folk-oriented sound within the progr ...

, an operator of Internet

peering In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the "down-stream" users of each network. Peering is settlement-free, also known as "bill-and ...

exchanges. Abovenet Communications had become a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange ( ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

in December 1998 and soared 32% in one day in March 1999 during the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

after announcing a

stock split A stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a company. For example, after a 2-for-1 split, each investor will own double the number of shares, and each share will be worth half as much. A stock split causes a decrease of mark ...

. In 2000, the company acquired M.I.B.H., a networking consultancy operated by

Paul Vixie Paul Vixie is an American computer scientist whose technical contributions include Domain Name System (DNS) protocol design and procedure, mechanisms to achieve operational robustness of DNS implementations, and significant contributions to open ...

, for $51 million in cash and stock. Also in 2000,

invested $970 million in convertible bonds and $715.4 million in common stock of the company. In 2001, the company acquired SiteSmith, a provider of managed web-hosting services, for $1.36 billion in stock. In May 2002, the company filed bankruptcy. In September 2003, the company emerged from bankruptcy and changed its name to Abovenet, with

Craig McCaw Craig McCaw (born August 11, 1949) is an American businessman and entrepreneur, a pioneer in the cellular phone industry. He is the founder of McCaw Cellular (now part of AT&T Mobility) and Clearwire Corporation (now part of T-Mobile via the Sprin ...

, Franklin Mutual Advisers, and

among its largest shareholders. In October 2006,

Digital Realty Digital Realty Trust, Inc. is a real estate investment trust that invests in carrier-neutral data centers and provides colocation and peering services. As of December 31, 2019, the company owned interests in 225 operating data center facilitie ...

acquired the east coast data centers of the company for $40 million. In 2007, the company acquired fiber from

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

and Verizon that the companies were selling to comply with antitrust law. On July 2, 2012,

acquired the company for $2.2 billion in cash.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abovenet 1998 initial public offerings 2012 mergers and acquisitions Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002 Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States Dot-com bubble Metromedia