Global Crossing
More info
- Creator
- Gary Winnick
- Released
- Type
- Fibre and subsea cable carrier
- Successor
- Acquired by Level 3
A company that laid fibre under the oceans for a traffic boom that did arrive – just a decade too late for its shareholders.
Financier Gary Winnick founded Global Crossing in 1997, registered in Bermuda, and started with Atlantic Crossing, a transatlantic fibre cable that went live in 1998. Within a few years it had assembled a global web of subsea and terrestrial routes, paid for with stock that rose faster than cable could be laid.
The trouble was that everyone else was building at the same time. Capacity outran demand by a wide margin, prices collapsed, and in January 2002 Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy – by which point Winnick had sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of shares. Singapore's ST Telemedia took over the remains, and Level 3 bought the network in 2011. The fibre overbuilt during the bubble now carries much of the traffic it was built for.