Winstar Communications is a former American telecommunications company that provided broadband

Broadband

The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...

 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

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

 of the late 1990s. At its peak in 2000, less than a year before its collapse, the company had a market capitalization

Market capitalization

Market capitalization is a measurement of the value of the ownership interest that shareholders hold in a business enterprise. It is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a publicly traded company...

 in excess of $4.4 billion and revenues of $445.6 million for the year ended December 31, 1999.

History

The company was founded in 1993 as a reseller of long distance service. After winning auctions for radio spectrum, the firm become a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier

Competitive local exchange carrier

A competitive local exchange carrier , in the United States, is a telecommunications provider company competing with other, already established carriers ....

 and began selling wireless broadband service .

In 1994, Winstar completed an initial public offering

Initial public offering

An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

, listing its stock on Nasdaq

NASDAQ

The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 under the symbol "WCII".

Winstar stock soard by over 600% between 1996 and 2000 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

Jack Grubman

Jack Benjamin Grubman was a former managing director of Salomon Smith Barney and the lead research analyst for telecommunications sector.-Personal life:...

, contributing to the Global settlement

Global settlement

The Global Settlement was an enforcement agreement reached on April 28, 2003 between the SEC, NASD, NYSE, and ten of the United States's largest investment firms to address issues of conflict of interest within their businesses-Settlement Decision:...

.

Bankruptcy

Despite its growth, Winstar was unable to generate enough sales to cover debts from massive capital expenditures required to build out its infrastrucutre. 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.

Winstar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April of 2001. The Chapter 11 (reorganization) cases were converted into Chapter 7 (liquidation) cases on January 24, 2002.