The company's name was its mission statement: Fiberoptic Link Around the Globe. FLAG Telecom owned undersea cable that ran from Britain through the Mediterranean and the Middle East to Asia. It sold that capacity to phone companies and internet carriers who needed to move traffic between continents. When it went public in February 2000, traffic on the internet was doubling fast, and investors were paying almost any price for the pipes that carried it.

Selling Space on the Seabed

FLAG's business was simple to explain and expensive to build. Lay glass fiber across the ocean, then sell long-term rights to use it. Its first system linked Europe and Asia by way of the Middle East. The company was incorporated in Bermuda and sold to carriers on every stretch of the route. Its bet was that demand for bandwidth would keep rising faster than anyone could lay new cable.

Too Much Glass, Too Soon

FLAG priced its offering at $24 a share in February 2000 and listed on Nasdaq as FTHL and in London as FTL. It sold more than 36 million shares. The bet on demand proved right, but so many rivals laid cable that prices for capacity collapsed. FLAG filed for Chapter 11 in April 2002 and emerged that October. In 2004 India's Reliance group bought the company for $207 million.

Cover: Ships in a Harbor, Willem van de Velde, II. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for ships under flags (a sea route around the world).