Serious Tubes Networks is an internet service provider

Internet service provider

An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...

 in Stockholm, Sweden, that provides network connectivity for The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...

, a major BitTorrent search engine.

The name is a wordplay on the "series of tubes

Series of tubes

"Series of tubes" is a phrase coined originally as an analogy by then-United States Senator Ted Stevens to describe the Internet in the context of opposing network neutrality. On June 28, 2006, he used this metaphor to criticize a proposed amendment to a committee bill...

" Internet meme

Internet meme

The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...

, originating from an anti-network neutrality

Network neutrality

Network neutrality is a principle that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers or governments on consumers' access to networks that participate in the Internet...

 speech in U.S. Congress.

In May 2011, the website of The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...

 was unreachable to Comcast

Comcast

Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

 customers. Serious Tubes Networks later announced that it was due to a routing configuration error at Global Crossing

Global Crossing

Global Crossing Limited was a telecommunications company that provides computer networking services worldwide. It maintained a large backbone and offered transit and peering links, VPN, leased lines, audio and video conferencing, long distance telephone, managed services, dialup, colocation and...

, which was providing service for Comcast.