AT&T puts Net, intranet on GSA sked

As part of a new strategy to market its services directly to users AT&T has begun beefing up its General Services Administration schedule contracts with new Internet and intranet services.

Jim Maloney district manager of hosting and transaction solutions for AT&T Government Markets said the company already offers its WorldNet Managed Internet Services for Government on Schedule 70 E and will add within the next two month its Easy World Wide Web (EW3) offering and its Enhanced Web Development Package. "The proposals are ready to go " he said. "You should see these services in July.

"We are putting a lot more emphasis on schedules and other procurement alternatives " Maloney said. "We want to make sure we have products available though every means of procurement the government has."

The WorldNet service provides a simple connection to the Internet essentially the same as AT&T's commercial product accessible through agencies' existing local-area network environments. Although the service became available through the GSA schedule about a year ago the company has just begun marketing it and so far has attracted about a dozen federal customers Maloney said. The service costs $19.95 per month.

Maloney said EW3 will allow federal Web site managers to focus on the content and look of their sites while leaving such tasks as server and bandwidth management security issues and systems administration to AT&T. The package includes two days of training for up to two employees and two authoring tools. The schedule price for EW3 is $300 a month.

The Enhanced Web Development Package geared toward more sophisticated users allows Web managers to write customized scripts or create interfaces to front-end applications or legacy data. Maloney said AT&T had not yet established pricing for the service.

New Push on GSA

AT&T traditionally has sold services to agencies through comprehensive contracts such as GSA's FTS 2000 contract and the Defense Commercial Telecommunications Network. But John Doherty AT&T's vice president for FTS 2000 and civilian markets said he believes the idea of a comprehensive governmentwide telecommunications vehicle has outlived its usefulness. In the future AT&T hopes to be able to market more of its services directly to agencies he said.

AT&T's schedule offering already competes with services offered through GSA's Federal Telecommunications Service contracts for Internet access. The FTS contracts for Commerce Internet Electronic Mail Access awarded in April to Advantis and BTG Inc. include services similar to those offered by AT&T on its schedule contract. A company source said AT&T has priced its schedule services to compete with those offered through CINEMA.

Bill Gormley assistant commissioner for acquisition at GSA's Federal Supply Service said he believes schedule contracts such as those held by AT&T are becoming extremely popular with agencies.

"I believe that [schedule] services contracts will dwarf the products contracts in a year or two " he said. "These contracts have clearly begun taking off."