Syracuse MetroNet began in 1996 when a group of Syracuse community organizations came together and, with the support of the Syracuse Economic Development Corporation (SEDCO), collectively developed a plan to ensure that the “Information Superhighway” would not bypass Central New York. These organizations responded to a Request for Proposals from the Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) Diffusion Committee. They were awarded $3.5 million dollars in 1998 to further their mission of creating an infrastructure that would support the development of applications that could benefit the underserved populations within the Central New York Region. Funding for this initiative was established as a part of a 50 million dollar rate settlement between the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) and the Bell Atlantic (Verizon) Company. The grant money was given to a local Syracuse Verizon sales office for the purposes of deploying fiber and advanced telecommunications technology within the underserved areas of Central New York. Throughout 1998, the MetroNet Steering Committee canvassed the community to identify interested organizations that wanted to participate in the Project. The MetroNet Project quickly grew to include fifteen organizations within the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County. Today, that consortium of the region’s hospitals, educational institutions, government agencies, and community organizations has been successful in connecting over 200 sites to the Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure.

The structural model chosen for the Syracuse MetroNet, Gigabit Ethernet, was new in 1998. It was simpler and less expensive than the then current technology, ATM. Bell Atlantic/Verizon built a private network to connect the various remote sites of each member to its operations center. The number of such sites varied from 1 to 47, among the Metronet members. In addition, Verizon built a separate vlan to connect all the members in a private community intranet. This intranet is used to deliver commercial Internet and research Internet 2 to MetroNet members, and secure teleconferencing and information sharing among members.

While the design, construction and installation of the MetroNet infrastructure has been completed, with Onondaga County Public Library in 2006, future plans and efforts include the peering of the MetroNet Community Intranet with both Verizon FIOS and Time Warner Cable. The plan is to bring smaller not-for-profit community organizations and agencies, health care offices and professionals, public officials and educators directly to the resources of the MetroNet members.