Switch & Data owned one of the first commercial internet exchanges in the world, a building in Palo Alto where networks met to swap traffic. The Tampa company owned no network of its own. That was the point. Carriers, internet providers and content companies rented space and power in its buildings and connected straight to each other. By the time it filed to go public in 2006, it ran 34 sites in 23 markets, with about 17,000 connections between customers.

Owning No Wires

Switch & Data called itself network neutral. Because it did not sell bandwidth, it never competed with its own tenants. Each new customer made a building more useful to the next one, since there were more networks to reach. The company grew by buying others. In March 2003 it bought the assets of PAIX, the Palo Alto exchange. In 2004 it added MeridianTelesis and the RACO Group.

Seventeen Dollars, Then Equinix

Switch & Data priced its IPO at $17 a share in February 2007 and listed on Nasdaq as SDXC. The offering raised about $198 million, split between the company and selling stockholders. Demand for data center space kept rising. In 2010 Equinix, a larger rival in the same business, bought Switch & Data for about $689 million in cash and stock. The deal closed that spring, and Switch & Data left Nasdaq in May 2010.

Cover: Railway-Station, Voves, James McNeill Whistler. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a railway station (traffic switching between lines).