The internet was a patchwork of networks that handed traffic to one another at crowded exchange points, where data often slowed or got lost. InterNAP built private access points wired to many major backbones. Its software picked the best path for each packet. When it filed to go public in the fall of 1999, businesses wanted the internet to behave as reliably as a private line.

A Dispatcher for Data

Anthony Naughtin and Chris Wheeler founded InterNAP in Seattle in 1996. They bet that businesses would pay more for internet traffic that avoided congestion. InterNAP bought capacity from many backbone providers. It steered each customer's traffic over the route that performed best at that moment, like a dispatcher sending trains down the clearest track. Many of its paying customers were content and media businesses.

Debt, Data Centers, Chapter 11

InterNAP priced at $20 a share in September 1999 and rose fast with the boom. The crash left it with heavy debt and falling prices. It survived, and over the following years it added data center, hosting and cloud services. The debt never went away. In 2020 the company filed for Chapter 11 and came out of the process as a private company.

Cover: The Railroad Yard, Winter, Alfred Stieglitz. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a winter railroad yard (routing traffic down the best track).