Verio

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Verio is an internet service provider (ISP) in the United States. Incorporated in 1996 in Denver, Colorado, it is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Communications, which purchased it in 2000. Verio performed the first national consolidation in the ISP industry, and its sale was the largest cash buy-out of a high-tech company by a foreign entity in United States history requiring approval by Congress and the President.

Initially, Verio raised funds with which to purchase regional small "mom and pop" ISPs around the United States and Europe. It was funded by the principal founders, private investors, NTT, and institutional investors in a private placement raising $250 million dollars. The concept was to "roll up" small ISPs into one large national ISP and achieve economies of scale with a single internet infrastructure, a single branded product line, a unified support structure, and so forth. This type of regional rollup into a national brand is common in many industries, but was the first of its kind on a national scale in the newly-evolving ISP industry.

By the year 2000, Verio had purchased almost fifty small ISPs, most in the U.S. but some in Europe, ranging in price from under a million dollars (USD) to over 100 million dollars per ISP. During this time Verio went public on the NASDAQ, trading under the symbol VRIO. In early 2000 Verio was sold to NTT at a per-share price of over $60, a total cost slightly exceeding $5 billion. Because NTT is a Japanese government-owned company, foreigners are not allowed to own NTT stock (according to Japanese law) and therefore the buy-out was a 100% cash deal. This was and still remains the largest cash transaction for a high-tech company in United States history. The United States Congress held hearings over the transaction to ensure it did not violate national security concerns, because the Verio Internet backbone was at the time one of the top five in the world, carrying a large amount of potentially sensitive data.

The Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation expressed concern that the Japanese government, which owned 53 percent of NTT at the time, could gain access to classified information should the U.S. government use Verio's network to tap Internet communications during an investigation. To placate these concerns, NTT agreed to form a separate division within the company staffed only by U.S. citizens to handle any work in support of government investigations. As a result, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recommended that President Clinton allow the $5.5 billion purchase to proceed. The deal also prompted scrutiny of Japan's openness to foreign telecom competitors.

Within months of the announced deal, the NASDAQ stock market crashed in the spring of 2000 in the dot-com bubble burst. The agreed price of around $60 remained and NTT and Verio completed the transaction by the fall of 2000.

Over the course of the next few years Verio abandoned the lower revenue consumer market and focused primarily on the more lucrative business to business web hosting market. Most of the original infrastructure and employees it had purchased were disbanded or consolidated into a few large centralized data centers.

Verio continues to operate as a wholely owned subsidiary of NTT America.

At the end of 2005, the backbone and some dedicated hosting centers moved to NTT America, with the web hosting business staying with Verio. At the same time, the European arm, Verio Europe, was moved in its entirety to NTT Europe. In October 2006 Verio Europe was re-named NTT Europe Online.

[edit] Some of the ISPs purchased by Verio

Access One (accessone.com) Western Washington
AimNet (aimnet.com) Santa Clara, California
ATMNet (atmnet.net) San Diego, California
Best Internet Communications (best.com)
Branch Net (branch.net, branch.com) Ann Arbor, Michigan
CCNet (ccnet.com) Walnut Creek, California
Clark Internet Services (ClarkNet) (clark.net, clarknet.net), Columbia, Maryland
Communique (cmq.net) Gulf South
Computing Engineers, Inc. (dba WorldWide Access) (wwa.com, wwa.net), Chicago, Illinois
Digital Nation (dn.net) Alexandria, Virginia, Hosting oriented ISP founded by Bruce Waldack
Florida Internet (flinet.com) South Florida
Global Enterprise Services (ges.net, ges.com) New Jersey
Hiway Technologies (hiway.com, hiway.net, hway.com, hway.net, rapidsite.net, rapidsite.com) Boca Raton, Florida
Internet Information Services (IIS), Bethesda, Maryland
Internet Interstate (intr.net) Bethesda, Maryland
Inetnet Now (inetnow.net) Atlanta, Georgia
iServer (iserver.net, iserver.com, secure.net) Orem, Utah
JVNC (jvnc.net) New Jersey
Long Island Internet (li.net) Long Island, New York
MagicNet (magicnet.net) Florida
MidNet (mid.net) Lincoln, Nebraska
Monumental Network Services (MNS), (monumental.net, monumental.com, mns.com, mns.net, mnsinc.com, mnsinc.net) Chantilly, Virginia
National Knowledge Network (NKN) (nkn.net, nkn.com, nkn.edu) Dallas, Texas
Network Intensive (ni.net, compute.com) Irvine, California
New York Net (new-york.net) New York City
Northwest Network Services (NorthWestNet), Poulsbo, Washington
NS Net (ns.net) Sacramento, California
OnRamp (onramp.net) Dallas, Texas
Pacific Rim (pacificrim.com, pacificrim.net) Bellingham, Washington
PacketWorks (packet.net) Tampa Bay, Florida
Pioneer Global (pioneerglobal.com, pn.net, wing.net) New England
PrepNet (prep.net, prepnet.net, prepnet.com) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
QualNet/IAGNet (qual.net, qualnet.net, iagnet.net, cic.net, cyberdrive.net, harborcom.com) Cleveland, Ohio (+17 Midwestern Cities)
RAINet (rain.net, rain.com) Oregon
RustNet (rust.net) Michigan
ServiceTech (servtech.com) New York, New York
SesquiNet (sesqui.net) Houston, Texas
SigNet (sig.net) Austin, Texas
SmartConnect (smartconnect.net) McLean, Virginia, Dedicated Access ISP founded by Chris Gettings and Henry Valentino
Spacelab (spacelab.net, mxol.com) New York, New York
Starnet (starnet.net) St. Louis, Missouri
Structured (structured.net, sns-access.com) Oregon
Surf Networks (surfnetwork.net, p3.net, dynanet.net) Philadelphia
Tab Net (tab.net, tabnet.net, criticalpath.net, cp.net) Napa Valley, California
TerraNet (terra.net, terranet.net, terranet.com) New England
West Coast Online (wco.com) Rohnert Park, California¹
Web Communications (WebCom) Santa Cruz, California WebCom