Company type | Defunct |
---|---|
Industry | Telecommunications |
Founded | 1993 |
Defunct | 2001 |
Fate | Liquidation via Chapter 7 Bankruptcy |
Headquarters | New York, New York |
Revenue | $445.6 million (1999) |
Number of employees | 3,900 (1999) |
Winstar Communications (at some point WinStar Communications) [1] was an American telecommunications company that provided broadband services to business customers. Winstar owned and operated a broadband network in 60 major markets in the United States, including each of the top 30 U.S. markets and ten markets internationally in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Winstar was a notable example of the internet and telecom bubbles of the late 1990s. At its peak in 2000, less than a year before its collapse, the company had a market capitalization in excess of $4.4 billion and revenues of $445.6 million for the year ended December 31, 1999. [2]
Winstar also bought Fox Lorber Home Video from New Video in the mid-1990s. In 2001, Genius Products bought out Fox Lorber after Winstar was shuttered.
The company was founded in 1993 as a reseller of long-distance service. After winning auctions for radio spectrum, the firm became a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier and began selling wireless broadband service. [3]
In 1994, Winstar completed an initial public offering, listing its stock on Nasdaq under the symbol "WCII". In the mid-1990s, Winstar acquired Fox Lorber Home Video.
Winstar stock soared by over 600% between 1996 and 2000 [4] as revenue grew from $2.7 million in 1995 to over $445 million in 1999. The company also received positive research reports from analysts, such as Jack Grubman, [5] [6] contributing to the Global settlement.
Despite its growth, Winstar was unable to generate enough sales to cover debts from massive capital expenditures required to build out its infrastructure. Among its creditors were a number of banks and high yield bond investors as well as other large telecommunications players, including Lucent that had offered the company significant vendor financing. [7]
Winstar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2001. [8] [9] [10] The company previously laid of nearly half its work force the same month. [10] The Chapter 11 (reorganization) cases were converted into Chapter 7 (liquidation) cases on January 24, 2002. [11]
Private investment company Oak Point Partners acquired the remnant assets, consisting of any known and unknown assets that weren't previously administered, from the Winstar Communications, Inc., et al., Bankruptcy Estates on January 19, 2011. [12]
India's telecommunication network is the second largest in the world by number of telephone users with 114.8 crore subscribers as on 07 February 2024. It has one of the lowest call tariffs in the world enabled by mega telecom operators and hyper-competition among them. India has the world's second-largest Internet user-base with 747.41 million broadband internet subscribers.
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business unit of AT&T Corporation, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs.
MCI, Inc. was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. WorldCom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunications companies, including MCI Communications in 1998, and filed for bankruptcy in 2002 after an accounting scandal, in which several executives, including CEO Bernard Ebbers, were convicted of a scheme to inflate the company's assets. In January 2006, the company, by then renamed MCI, was acquired by Verizon Communications and was later integrated into Verizon Business.
Global Crossing Limited, was a telecommunications company that provided computer networking services and operated a tier 1 carrier. It maintained a large backbone network and offered peering, virtual private networks, leased lines, audio and video conferencing, long-distance telephone, managed services, dialup, colocation centres and VoIP. Its customer base ranged from individuals to large enterprises and other carriers, with emphasis on higher-margin layered services such as managed services and VoIP with leased lines. Its core network delivered services to more than 700 cities in more than 70 countries.
Avaya LLC, often shortened to Avaya, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includes unified communications and contact center services. In 2019, the company provided services to 220,000 customer locations in 190 countries.
ADC Telecommunications was a communications company located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a southwest suburb of Minneapolis. It was acquired by TE Connectivity in December 2010 and ceased to exist as a separate entity. It vacated its Eden Prairie location in May 2011 and moved staff and resources to other locations. ADC products were sold by CommScope after it acquired the Broadband Network Solutions business unit from TE Connectivity in August 2015.
Innovate Corp. is an American public financial services company founded in 1994.
Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. is an American telecommunications company. Known as Citizens Utilities Company until 2000, Citizens Communications Company until 2008, and Frontier Communications Corporation until 2020, as a communications provider with a fiber-optic network and cloud-based services, Frontier offers broadband internet, digital television, and computer technical support to residential and business customers in 25 states. In some areas it also offers home phone services.
The telecommunications industry in China is dominated by three state-run businesses: China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. The three companies were formed by restructuring launched in May 2008, directed by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Minister of Finance. Since then, all three companies gained nationwide fixed-line and cellular mobile telecom licenses in China. In 2019, all three telecoms were issued 5G national licenses.
@Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their first CEO, as a joint venture to produce high-speed cable Internet service through two-way television cable infrastructure. At the company's peak it provided high speed Internet service for 4.1 million subscribers in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the Benelux nations. The company operated as four joint ventures, three of which were international. In 1999, the company acquired Excite. In 2008, @Home was merged into Ziggo.
SR Telecom Inc. was a broadband wireless systems manufacturer headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, and present in over 130 countries around the world. Established in 1981, SR Telecom provided urban and rural telecommunications providers with wireless systems delivering voice, data and multimedia services.
Alcatel–Lucent S.A. was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a successor of AT&T's Western Electric and a holding company of Bell Labs.
The Telecoms crash, also known as the Telecommunications Bubble was a stock market crash that occurred in 2001, after the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
IDT Corporation is a multinational provider of cloud communications, point of sale systems, unified communications, and financial services foreign exchange services for selected clients. It has units dedicated for businesses and consumers such as the Boss Revolution pre-paid phone cards, headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.
GO p.l.c. is a Maltese integrated telecommunications company. It is a quadruple play provider that offers local and long distance telephone services, wireless services, digital terrestrial television, DSL and Fiber to the home internet access. GO is based in Marsa, Malta.
Primus Telecommunications Pty Ltd. is an Australian telecommunications company and wholly owned subsidiary of Vocus Communications that primarily focuses on fixed, mobile, and broadband services.
Trillium Digital Systems, Inc. developed and licensed standards-based communications source code software to telecommunications equipment manufacturers for the wireless, broadband, Internet and telephone network infrastructure. Trillium was an early company to license source code. The Trillium Digital Systems business entity no longer exists, but the Trillium communications software is still developed and licensed. Trillium software is used in the network infrastructure as well as associated service platforms, clients and devices.
Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western and midwestern U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Open Range Communications was a Colorado-based telecommunication company providing wireless broadband infrastructure for rural communities. The company developed and marketed WiMAX network products. In 2008 it was awarded a $267 million loan from the Rural Utilities Service’s broadband program to supply broadband services in addition to $100 million in finance from JP Morgan Chase. The company filed for bankruptcy on October 6, 2011.
GTT Communications, Inc. (GTT), formerly Global Telecom and Technology, is a multinational telecommunications company and managed network and security service provider headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. GTT operates a Tier 1 IP network and provides Internet; wide area networking, SD-WAN; network security, managed services; and voice and video transport services.