NorthPoint Filed for bankruptcy in January 2001 and sold its networking hardware to AT&T in March For $135 million .AT&T was not interested in continuing the DSL business (it just wanted the hardware), so NorthPoint’s 87,000 small business customers lost their Internet service overnight. In many of the cities that had served, there were no competitors to pick up the service. Because the capital markets of the late 1990s were so eager to invest in anything that appeared to be connected with the Internet , NorthPoint was able to raise incredible amounts of money. However, NorthPoint sold Internet access to customers for less than it cost to provide the service. No amount of investor money could overcome that basic business mistake.