No New Networx Extension

In response to some confusion earlier this week, I would like to take a moment and pass on a clarification I just received from GSA regarding the deadline for agencies to transition to the Networx telecommunications contract.

I reported a few weeks ago that it's unlikely all agencies will have completed the transition from FTS2001 to Networx by the summer 2010 deadline, since only 23 percent of agencies have currently disconnected services from FTS2001. That's not really shocking, since Martha Johnson, Obama's pick for GSA Administrator, admitted as much at her confirmation hearing in June.

The confusion is likely related to the summer 2010 date, which can be viewed as a "soft" deadline. In 2007, GSA negotiated bridge contracts with the FTS2001 vendors, which were set to expire in May/June of 2010, at which point GSA anticipated having the transition completed. However, each of the bridge contracts also contained a continuity of service provision, allowing agencies to extend their FTS2001 services for one additional year. While those provisions do not take effect automatically, a GSA spokesperson informed me that GSA does intend to invoke them, making June 2011 the hard deadline for when FTS2001 services will be cut off.

We acknowledged that fact in our original report, which quotes long-time federal IT observers predicting that some agencies will also miss the 2011 deadline, which cannot be extended any further. That would likely necessitate the creation of additional, expensive sole-source bridge contracts, something GSA denies it is considering at this point.

The bottom line is that nothing has changed from one week ago when we reported that most of the delays have taken place during the fair opportunity process. GSA is still hoping all of the agencies will complete the transition by the summer of 2011 and is putting its eggs in that basket, providing additional technical support for agencies that don't have the necessary telecom expertise.

But with agencies focused on a number of other initiatives, including high-priority items such as stimulus projects, it still looks unlikely that 100 percent of agencies will have completed the transition by June 2011.

Here's the full statement from Karl Krumbholz, director of network services programs in GSA's Federal Acquisition Service:

The Government has until 2011 to disconnect all services from current FTS2001 contracts. GSA will not extend the exisitng (sic) contacts beyond their May/June expiration dates. In early 2007, we negotiated 42 month sole source bridge contracts with our FTS2001 carriers, Sprint and MCI, and a similar bridge contract with AT&T, one of our crossover carriers, to expire in May/June of 2010. It was not necessary to negotiate a bridge contract with Qwest, since their crossover contract already ended in the same May/June 2010 timeframe.

Each of these contracts has always had a continuity of service provision that allows GSA to extend the contracts for 12 additional months for the purpose of completing transition. These continuity of service contract provisions do not go into effect automatically. They must be invoked by GSA, and GSA intends to invoke them.

Once continuity of service provisions have been invoked for all our FTS2001 service providers, their contracts will expire in the May/June timeframe of 2011. By this time Agencies must have placed orders on Networx in order to continue to receive service. The current sole source contracts can not be extended and GSA is taking no action to get authorization to negotiate additional sole source contracts with our FTS2001 carriers.