By Zayo taking out AboveNet, (it removes their competition) and they can move in and scoop up the crumbs."  As for why AboveNet put itself in play in the first place, Jaegers said the impetus came from within. "AboveNet had gotten pressure from one of its owners, Corvex, to boost the stock or put itself up for sale at $84 to $87 a share. Rather than try to build to that value, they tee themselves up," she said. "We thought they had a buyer at midyear last year but that was around the mid-$70 price target. That deal fell apart. It sounded like they had a private equity bidder interested but ran into financing issues."  Five-year-old Zayo owns a 45,000-route mile network that covers 42 states and the District of Columbia. It reported a loss of $1.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2011. AboveNet, founded in 1993, operates metropolitan networks totaling 9,000 route miles and a long-haul fiber network of about 13,000 miles. The company earned almost $73 million on revenue of $472 million last year.