In 1996, a phone call from Madrid to Milan could cost a small business a fortune, because each country's state monopoly set its own prices. Viatel lived in that gap. The New York company ran switches in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Rome and four other European cities, linked by leased fiber. It sold businesses long distance service at lower rates, often through callback, where a customer dialed in, hung up, and got a cheap line back.

An Argentine in New York

Martin Varsavsky, an Argentine entrepreneur who had already started a real estate firm and a biotech company, founded Viatel in 1991. The company began with callback service and grew a switched network across Western Europe, with a hub in Omaha, Nebraska linked to London. Most of its customers were small and midsize businesses. The bet was that Europe's phone markets would open to competition, and that a nimble carrier already in place would win when they did.

Fiber, Then Chapter 11

Viatel priced its offering at $12 a share on October 17, 1996, and listed on Nasdaq as VYTL, with Salomon Brothers leading the deal. Europe's markets did open, and Viatel borrowed heavily to build its own fiber network across the continent. The telecom boom turned to bust in 2000, and prices for long distance capacity collapsed. Viatel could not carry its debt. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2001.

Cover: Part of the ancient Appian Way about three miles outside Porta San Sebastiano, Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an ancient Roman road (via, a route across Europe).