Case Study: NYSERNet Turns to Lexent for Dark Fiber Network

NYSERNet was founded in 1985 by a consortium of public and private New York State institutions to provide high-speed network connectivity to advance research and educational initiatives in the Empire State. It is a not-for-profit corporation that was created to foster science and education in New York State. Many of its members required a New York City metro dark fiber network to support the growing and complex communication networking requirements. As an Internet pioneer, NYSERNet has delivered next-generation Internet services to New York State’s research and education community for more than 20 years, so access to the best-of-breed network providers was one of its core requirements. NYSERNet member institutions include: The City University of New York, Columbia University, Cornell University, Fordham University, New York University, The Rockefeller University, The American Museum of Natural History, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York Public Library and more.

As the growing needs of its members increased, with the advent of new technology, faster Internet and the development of Internet 2, in 2003, NYSERNet began to implement its New York City Metropolitan Fiber Project, which uses optical fiber to interconnect participating institutions in Manhattan and the Bronx with NYSERNet’s communications hub at 32 Avenue of the Americas. Finding a provider to design, construct and maintain this dark-fiber network was not an easy task.

The Solution:

After an extensive RFP process that was vetted by its members and two separate committees, one evaluating financials of the deal and the other the technical details, NYSERNet chose Lexent Metro Connect to build its New York Metro Fiber network, also referred to as the Dark Fiber Network (DFN), to cost-effectively meet the customized needs of its member institutions. Lexent provided a scalable infrastructure, leveraging the latest in fiber-optic technology, to deploy a resilient metro network ring architecture that supports interconnection of NYSERNet’s colocation facility at 32 Avenue of the Americas and its member institution facilities throughout Manhattan and the Bronx.

“Our network was designed to provide NYSERNet and its members high-performance access to our Research and Education Network, to our lambda services and to commercial Internet service providers,” said Sharon Akkoul, program manager for NYC Metro Fiber Services for NYSERNet. “It also offers an opportunity to implement private intra and inter-institutional networks among our member’s locations.”

The Results:

Today, the DFN allows NYSERNet members to handoff traffic among their own sites, to other DFN members and to various other network providers.

“The infrastructure that was constructed, deployed and now managed by Lexent provides the basis of the DFN,” added Akkoul. “The DFN network offers members an effective solution for their current network needs and positions them to scale gracefully and economically to meet the evolving needs of their end users.” The NYSERNet Dark Fiber Network, spanning more than 1,500 fiber miles, provides institutions an economical, scalable internetworking solution that meets the increasing demands of new applications and provides them with the ability to ride declining cost curves to achieve higher bandwidth solutions with emerging optical network equipment and technologies.