AboveNet made most of its money selling bandwidth, by the month, to websites that kept their servers in its buildings. It opened its first facility in San Jose in July 1996, four months after its founding. Content providers moved in first. Then internet service providers came, and AboveNet built what it called an ISX, a place where customers could connect to many networks at once. When it filed to go public in 1998, online stores needed somewhere safe to plug in.

San Jose to Vienna

AboveNet was founded in March 1996, with Sherman Tuan as chief executive. In August 1997 it began serving ISPs as well as content providers, which led to its ISX model. In July 1998 it opened a second ISX facility in Vienna, Virginia, and added about 7,000 square feet in San Jose. Customers paid monthly for bandwidth and space, plus one-time installation fees.

Thirteen Dollars, Then a Merger

AboveNet priced its IPO at $13 a share in December 1998 and listed on the Nasdaq National Market as ABOV. Less than a year later, in 1999, Metromedia Fiber Network bought AboveNet in an all-stock deal. Metromedia Fiber went bankrupt in 2002. It came out of bankruptcy in 2003 under the AboveNet name. That second AboveNet was sold to Zayo Group in 2012.

Cover: Dragons Among Clouds, Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for dragons above the clouds (AboveNet).