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'''NI&S''', previously known as '''Communications Network Services ''' ('''CNS'''), and briefly as ''' Advanced Network Infrastructure and Services''' ('''ANIS''') is a division the ISP of [[Virginia Tech]], and part of the Office [[Division of the Vice President for Information TechnologyIT]], which provides ISP providing services including telephone and Internet to the university. Around 2015, they went through a significant rebranding effort, because of the poor reputation earned by CNS as being "unhelpful, tyrannical network overlords", in the words of a former student. Today, they attempt to exist by their ''Brand Promise'', "Let's explore what's possible together", and ''Brand Character'', "Approachable, Plain Spoken, Collaborative", in order to prevent the need for further rebranding. Several NI&S employees have suggested a more accurate motto would read "F*ck you; we turned it off", in reference to several services essential to the jobs of departmental IT, like rdweb, the "temporary" port 22 block, the L2TP VPN, and several other useful services. Unlike most departments, CNS operates as an auxillary service, and therefore recieves funding through cost-recovery rather than university budgets. Individual departments and students must pay a ''per-port'' charge for each IP or phone device attached to the network.

In Blacksburg, CNS has redundant fiber uplinks to Ashburn, Virginia , McLean, Virginia, and Atlanta, Georgia. The [[Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation]] provides the OC-192 (10 Gigabit) connection connections to Ashburn and McLean from the [[Andrews Information Services Systems Building]], and the OC-192 (10 Gigabit) connection to Atlanta from [[Hillcrest Hall]]. In summer 2015, the OC-192 connection to Ashburn will be upgraded to OC-768 (100 Gigabit).<ref>[https://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2015/04/042115-it-gigabits.html]</ref>

For cost-savings reasons, the university's connectivity is primarily provided through an aggregation network shared by several other universities in Virginia, the [[Mid-Atlantic Research and Education Exchange]] (MREX). MREX , also known as the [[Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership]] (MATP)<ref>[https://beta.peeringdb.com/net/4326 PeeringDB: Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership - MATP]</ref>, is operated by Virginia Tech and provides connectivity for the [[Mid-Atlantic Research Infrastructure Alliance]](MARIA), an alliance of the universities that receive connectivity through MREX.<ref>[http://www.marialliance.net/about-usAbout Maria - Mid-Atlantic Research Infrastructure Alliance]</ref>

MREX operates two regional hubs: MREX-ATL , at Telx Atlanta , and MREX-DC , at Equinix Ashburn. At each hub, MREX operates a Cisco ASR9006 aggregation router. There is another MREX-DC was formerly the only regional hubfacility at Level3 McLean, and was previously connected as part of a fiber ring that also includes the predecessor to MARIA, [[Arlington Research Center]] and the [[Mid-Atlantic Terascale PartnershipNorthern Virginia Center]] (MATP). At each hub, MREX operates a Cisco ASR9000 series aggregation router.

At Equinix in [[Ashburn]], MREX-DC has a 100 Gigabit connection to [[Internet2]], 10 Gigabit connections to [[ESnet]] and the Equinix Internet Exchange, and 30 Gigabits of commodity Internet connectivity through Cogent. Virginia Tech, through MREX-DC, additionally also has a 10 Gigabit connection to [[Mid-Atlantic Crossroads]] and several peers, and a 1 Gigabit connection to [[NetworkVirginia]]here.

At Telx in Atlanta, MREX-ATL has 10 Gigabit connections to [[Southern Crossroads]], [[ESnet]], the Telia Internet Exchange, and 30 Gigabits of commodity Internet connectivity through Telia. <ref>[http://www.cafm.vt.edu/busprac/_docs/bpseminar_2014/2014-BusinessPracticeSeminar-Internet.pdf]</ref> MREX-ATL was opened in 2014 and is the first network facility operated by Virginia Tech located outside of Virginia.<ref>[httphttps://www.cafmvtnews.vt.edu/buspracarticles/_docs2014/bpseminar_201403/2014032114-it-BusinessPracticeSeminardatanetworkexchange.html]</ref> At Level3 in McLean, MREX's McLean facility, referred to as the National Capital Region (NatCap) Aggregation Facility, has a 10 Gigabit connection to [[Mid-InternetAtlantic Crossroads]] and a connection to [[NetworkVirginia]].<ref>[http://www.cns.vt.edu/docs/NIS_SubcommitteeMinutes07Dec2009.pdf]</ref>

CNS is a leader in the transition to IPv6, as their [[w:Autonomous System|ASN]] consistently ranks in the top 5 in terms of percentage of IPv6 traffic, according to [http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/ World IPv6 Launch Measurements]. A dual-stack topology exists for the entirety of campus, but not all systems connected to the network are IPv6-enabled. One system that notably lacks connectivity is the main vt.edu website, which is due to a lack of support from the load balancers currently in use. For legacy reasons, Virginia Tech continues to use its /48 sub-allocation from the [[w:University of Maryland|University of Maryland]]on many subnets, instead of its although newer equipment is being configured with the assigned IPv6 block (2607:b400::/32). It is unknown when the new address space will begin to be used.