Donald Green had already co-founded one big telecom equipment maker, Tellabs, before he started this one. In 1992 he set up Advanced Fibre Communications in Petaluma, California, to rebuild the last stretch of the phone network, the lines between a central office and the homes it served. Its UMC system could run over copper, fiber, coaxial cable, or radio. When AFC went public in October 1996, phone companies were starting to rewire for data as well as voice.

One Box for Every Wire

Green founded AFC with Jim Hoeck and John Webley in May 1992. The company spent two years on development and began shipping the UMC system in January 1994. It was a digital loop carrier, a box that gathered many phone lines and linked them to the central office switch. Ameritech and GTE were early buyers. Before the IPO, AFC settled a costly lawsuit with DSC Communications, a larger rival.

Twenty-Five Dollars, Then Home

AFC priced its IPO at $25 a share on October 1, 1996, raising $112.5 million, and listed on Nasdaq as AFCI. Its sales grew as phone companies upgraded their networks for the internet, and AFC later added gear for broadband data and video over the same lines. In 2004 Tellabs, the company Green had co-founded in 1975, bought AFC for about $1.9 billion. The deal closed that December.

Cover: The Spinner, Jean François Millet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a spinner at work (spinning fibre).