When the District of Columbia Government moved from the District Building to 441 4th Street, NW in the early 90's, each agency was responsible for connecting its office to a local area network. The District's networks primarily functioned as separate entities until several years later, when the DC Government decided to implement a wide-area network to interconnect all District agencies local area networks.

This wide-area network, DCWAN, is continuously being developed and enhanced to accommodate future requirements. A significant investment has been made in improving the overall connectivity for the DC Government and its related agencies throughout the city under the direction of Suzanne Peck, the Chief Technology Officer of the District of Columbia.

The DCWAN, as it stands today, is the technology platform for developing and deploying state-of-the-art District-Wide Information Systems. This technology infrastructure consists of over 500 sites, connecting 1.54 Mbps T1 data circuits, ISDN data circuits and high speed DS-3 circuits running at speeds up to 10 Mbps, all arranged in a multipoint star topology using Bell Atlantic's Switched Multimegabit (SMDS). This unified platform deploys sophisticated Cisco enterprise class routers and over 30,000 modes that access the Internet and electronic mail. The DCWAN currently supports mission critical applications such as System of Accounting Reports (SOAR), CAPPS, and emerging technologies such Gigabit Ethernet, Video Conferencing, and video streaming.