Phone companies already ran a copper line to every house, and Centillium made chips that turned those lines into broadband. Most homes still reached the internet through a dial-up modem in 2000. Telephone companies wanted to sell faster service without laying new cable, and DSL let them do it. Centillium, based in Fremont, California, designed the chips inside DSL equipment. It went public in May 2000, when the race to wire homes for broadband was at full speed.

Big Orders From Japan

Centillium bet that DSL would be the main way households got broadband, and that phone companies would buy huge amounts of equipment to offer it. Its chips went into the gear at the phone company's office and into some home modems. It competed against much larger chip companies for each contract. Its biggest wins came in Japan, where DSL spread quickly and large contracts became a major source of revenue.

Slower Lines

Centillium priced its IPO at $19 a share in May 2000 and listed on Nasdaq. Its bankers had first hoped for $22 to $24. The shares soared at first, then fell as telecom spending dropped and chip prices came down. The company tried new areas such as voice-over-IP and fiber chips. In 2008 TranSwitch acquired Centillium. DSL went on to connect many millions of homes around the world.

Cover: Electric Light Arrives, Manuel Manilla. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for electric light arrives (broadband down old wires).