In 1999 most Americans reached the internet through a screeching dial-up modem. Efficient Networks sold the small box that ended that. Its DSL modems sat in a home or office and turned the existing copper phone line into an always-on broadband link. Phone companies and new carriers such as Covad bought them in volume. When the Dallas company went public that July, broadband was the next great race in telecom.

Floyd's Copper Bet

Mark Floyd co-founded Efficient in June 1993 and served as its president and chief executive. The company built customer premises equipment, the gear at the subscriber's end of a DSL line. Phone companies had miles of copper already in the ground. DSL let them sell fast internet over it without laying new cable. Efficient bought chipsets from suppliers like Alcatel, Analog Devices and Texas Instruments, and sold finished modems to carriers.

Fifteen Dollars to Siemens

Efficient priced its IPO at $15 a share on July 15, 1999, and Covad's convertible debt turned into stock at that price. The shares rose with the broadband boom, and Efficient sold more stock in early 2000 and early 2001. Then many DSL carriers collapsed. In March 2001 Siemens launched a tender offer for Efficient at $23.50 a share in cash, and Efficient deregistered that April.

Cover: Netting the Fish, Winslow Homer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for fishermen hauling a net (the network).