Digex, Inc. was one of the first

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privatel ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. 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 Comp ...

, its stock price rose to $184 per share; the company was acquired for $1 per share a few years later.

History

Digital Express Group, predecessor to DIGEX, was founded by Doug Humphrey and Mike Doughney in the basement of Mr. Humphrey's townhouse in

Greenbelt, Maryland Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of Washington, D.C. At the 2020 census, the population was 24,921. Greenbelt is the first and the largest of the three experimental and controversial New De ...

in 1991, offering

web hosting service A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web ...

s and Internet access. In 1995, the company raised $8 million from Grotech Capital and Venrock. In October 1996, the company became 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 ( l ...

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 1997, the company was acquired by Intermedia Communications, a

competitive local exchange carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a " carrier") competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrie ...

based in

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough C ...

. In 1999, Intermedia completed the partial

corporate spin-off A corporate spin-off, also known as a spin-out, or starburst or hive-off, is a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" a section as a separate business or creates a second incarnation, even if the first is still active. Charact ...

of Digex. In 2000,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

and

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

invested $100 million in Digex. In September 2000,

WorldCom MCI, Inc. (subsequently Worldcom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. Worldcom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunic ...

acquired Intermedia Communications and gained a majority stake in Digex. In 2003, WorldCom acquired the remainder of the company. Verizon acquired Worldcom in 2006 and integrated the company into

Verizon Business Verizon Business (formerly known as Verizon Enterprise Solutions) is a division of Verizon Communications based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey that provides services and products for Verizon's business and government clients around the world. I ...

Streaming media

In 1995, Digex launched ISP-TV, a network of linked CU-SeeMe

videotelephony Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Enc ...

servers from multiple ISPs to provide for large-audience webcasts via

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

. In 1996, ISP-TV began producing original video content in one of the first "cyberstudios" in

Laurel, Maryland Laurel is a city in Maryland, United States, located midway between Washington and Baltimore on the banks of the Patuxent River. While the city limits are entirely in northern Prince George's County, outlying developments extend into Anne Arun ...

. Shows included "Head" (a beer show) and "Meeks Unfiltered" with

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politic ...

correspondent Brock Meeks. Digex also streamed Bud Bowl during the Super Bowl for

Anheuser-Busch Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV ( AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple ...

. In 1999 Apple hired Digex to stream the Star Wars trailer in QuickTime format. This industry first saturated the internet bandwidth at the time but proved that video streaming had a future.

References

{{Dot-com Bubble 1991 establishments in Maryland 1996 initial public offerings 2003 disestablishments in Maryland Telecommunications companies established in 1991 Technology companies disestablished in 2003 Defunct Internet service providers Defunct companies based in Maryland Dot-com bubble Greenbelt, Maryland Laurel, Maryland Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States Verizon Communications acquisitions 2000 mergers and acquisitions