It mainly provides Internet access to universities, colleges, museums, health care facilities, primary and secondary schools, and research institutions.
Its founders compared NYSERNet's network with the Erie Canal and considered it the next step in two centuries to draw the country together.
[1] NYSERNet's network reaches from Buffalo to New York City.
Completed in 1987, it was the first statewide regional IP network in the United States.
This ASN is used today by Cogent Communications for their global network.