The California Education and Research Federation Network (CERFnet) is a mid-level

network service provider Network Service Provider (NSP) is one of the roles defined in the National Information Infrastructure (NII) plan, which governed the transition of the Internet from US federal control to private-sector governance, with an accompanying shift from t ...

based in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It was one of the

NSFNET The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The ...

regional networks and a co-founder of the

Commercial Internet eXchange The Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) was an early interexchange point that allowed the free exchange of TCP/IP traffic, including commercial traffic, between ISPs. It was an important initial effort toward creating the commercial Internet that ...

(CIX). The CERFnet network was founded in January 1988 by Susan Estrada of the

San Diego Supercomputer Center The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego. Founded in 1985, it was one of the five original NSF supercomputing centers. Its research pursuits are high performance comput ...

(SDSC). It received partial funding of $2.8 million by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

a year after its founding, and was fully operational by November 1989, linking together 38 California research centers. The network was operated by the SDSC and

General Atomics General Atomics (GA) is an American energy and defense corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, that specializes in research and technology development. This includes physics research in support of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion en ...

References

{{telecom-company-stub 1988 establishments in California American companies established in 1988 Companies based in California Internet properties established in 1988 Internet service providers of the United States Telecommunications companies of the United States