Nextlink was Craig McCaw's next move after he sold McCaw Cellular to AT&T. He founded it in 1994 to compete with the regional Bell companies for local phone customers. The Telecom Act of 1996 had opened local markets to new carriers. Nextlink built its own networks instead of reselling the Bells' lines. By the fall of 1997 it ran 14 networks serving 23 markets in seven states. When it went public that September, McCaw was its main owner.

Facilities, Not Resale

Nextlink aimed at small and mid-sized businesses. It sold switched local and long distance service over networks it owned, which meant laying fiber and buying switches city by city. That cost a great deal of money, so Nextlink raised it through stock and debt offerings. Its rules for connecting to the Bell companies' networks depended on regulators and the courts. In July 1997 a federal appeals court threw out many of the FCC's rules for those connections.

Seventeen Dollars, Then XO

Nextlink priced its IPO at $17 a share in September 1997 and listed on the Nasdaq National Market as NXLK. It sold 15.2 million Class A shares, some of them from a selling shareholder. The company spent heavily to build fiber networks and bought Concentric Network in 2000. That year it renamed itself XO Communications. When the telecom bubble burst, XO could not carry its debt, and it filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

Cover: Landscape with Little Bridge, Gillis Neyts. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a small bridge (the next link).