Labor Department Awards Verizon $887M to Radically Revamp IT Backbone

The Labor Department selected Verizon Public Sector to help substantially modernize its legacy communications and information technology capabilities via five Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions task orders worth a combined $887 million.

The General Services Administration-run governmentwide EIS contract vehicle, which launched in 2017, was designed to for transformative outcomes for agencies, and it essentially serves as the primary vehicle for their internet, telecommunications and other services. EIS will replace the governmentwide Networx and Washington Interagency Telecommunications Systems, or WITS-3, contracts that are supposed to sunset in 2023.

“DOL has disconnected 77% of our EIS transition inventory from the expiring contracts,” Egan Reich, the department’s director of media and editorial services, told Nextgov on Tuesday.

Through these new task orders, Verizon will deliver a custom-managed services solution to enable connectivity across the agency. A company announcement outlines what each of those five are set to accomplish. They involve efforts to fully revamp DOL’s IT infrastructure and network architecture, improve its audio and web conferencing services, and support the deployment of unified communications services spanning the department’s thousands of end-users, among other tasks.

To date, “Verizon has captured the most EIS dollars measured by funds actually spent by the federal government,” a company spokesperson told Nextgov, citing data from Deltek. 

“Further, these recent U.S. Department of Labor awards are a good example of how the program is working,” the official said. “Verizon will upgrade DOL's IT backbone through a variety of innovative solutions, including broadband, cloud, fiber and wireless.”

EIS is the government’s go-to contract for networking and communications solutions going forward, but there is no explicit 5G component associated with these task orders, the spokesperson noted. Still, Verizon is an agency and military partner for several unfolding next-generation wireless initiatives.

“While that work falls outside the EIS program, in the big picture both elements are empowering us to bring forth next-generation services and network modernization for our public sector partners,” the spokesperson said.

Ultimately, the task orders are anticipated to result in a converged data and voice network across nearly 1,000 locations and services and applications spanning 20,000 department users. Altogether, Labor has awarded six task orders under the modern contract vehicle.

“No additional EIS awards are planned by DOL,” Reich said.