History
History
The evolution of electronic communications burst into our lives when Samuel Morse sent the first signals across a piece of wire in 1837. Lines were strung and society had its first taste of rapid communications. Sixty-two years later, Guglielmo Marconi discarded the wires. By then, the telephone was twenty years old and already more a necessity than a toy. The early 1900s saw one improvement after another: radio tubes, radio amplifiers, and receivers. The tremendous potential of these inventions did not go unnoticed by the law enforcement community.
By the 1930s, the radio had become a potent weapon against crime. With short-distance communications rapidly and modes of travel vastly improved, the need for more flexible long-distance communications became imperative. Enter the teletypewriter, an easily-operated, sending, typewriting machine, first utilized by law enforcement in Connecticut in 1927. Two years later, the first statewide network was placed in operation by the Pennsylvania State Police. Other states soon followed. Teletype communications within a political jurisdiction of a state or county cropped up rapidly; however, the mobility of the criminal was not confined to political jurisdictions. In 1930, the first interstate teletype connection went into service between New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. For the next thirty-five years, interstate connections developed into small regional networks and the small regions grew larger.
By 1963, the eastern seaboard states were interconnected in a teletype network that extended from Maine to South Carolina and as far west as Ohio and West Virginia. The West Coast and the Gulf states also developed links to neighboring states. This piecemeal concept of development was not without its difficulties. Standards were parochial. Inter-regional communications were slow. Law enforcement recognized these deficiencies and, in 1965, representatives from the states agreed on the development of a nationwide interstate communications system.
The Law Enforcement Teletype System (LETS) began operation on May 2, 1966. Punched paper tape switching equipment was installed in Phoenix, Arizona because the Arizona Highway Patrol Headquarters had consented to housing and operating the network. By today's standards, the system was still slow: 100 words per minute if only one user was sending or receiving on one of only six lines connecting all of the states. More often than not, many users crowded the circuits.
By 1970, the system had become hopelessly overloaded. That year, two small computers were installed to upgrade the capacity of the system. By 1972, advances in the interstate communication system, coupled with the need for more and more information, had once more outdistanced Nlets' ability to serve.
In late 1973, Nlets, Inc. (the organization was incorporated in Delaware as a not-for-profit group on March 17, 1970) completed a massive upgrade of their system. This would mark the only time NLETS relied on federal funds to assist them. The system grew and became widely accessible to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies nationwide.
In 1980, 1990, and again in 1999, Nlets upgraded their system, but under somewhat different circumstances. First, they did not wait until service was degraded; and, second, they had set aside funds in prior years for the upgrade. It was, therefore, unnecessary to seek any federal funds for these upgrades. The states shouldered the entire expense.
A lot has changed in the last ten years. From 2000 to 2010, Nlets made huge improvements to everything from network, system, and security to disaster recovery, members and partners, and available transactions.
Nlets went from a private, 128k frame relay system with partial 56k T1 lines to a private T1 newtork with MPLS lines that have 3G wireless WAN backup. This provided more bandwidth at less cost, and a fully backed up and meshed network. On the security front, Nlets went from simply 128k VPN encryption to 256k VPN AES encryption, annual vulnerability assessment analysis and report, and added Intrusion Detection Systems, Intrusion Prevention Systems, Multi-Factor Authentication for remote-access VPN , Proxy Firewalls, Enterprise class antivirus solution, and firewalls for all networks. After the events of 9/11, Nlets acknowledged the need for disaster recovery services. Nlets went from their first disaster recovery site in 2004—nine square feet—to a brand new, state of the art 1,200 square feet site with additional duplicated critical infrastructure, and the ability to remotely control room access and system monitoring.
Nlets went from legacy transactions (e.g. driver and vehicle registration, criminal history records) to legacy and XML, as well as a wide variety of new data sets (Interpol, IFTA, LPR, Bulk Cash Smuggling database, state warrants, driver license and corrections images, etc.). In addition, Nlets doubled devices connected, user agencies, and individual users--in fact, the Nlets network processes over 1 billion transactions annually! They added core customers, strategic partners, hosting and consulting services, and over 1 million in grant-funded dollars. They also facilitate three annual events: the Annual Nlets Business Meeting, the Nlets Implementers Workshop, and, jointly with FBI CJIS, the State Training & Audit Resources Conference (STARS). Finally, Nlets went from 10 to 29 employees, and from 200 square feet of rented space to owning their own 15,000 square feet.
