Justice Signs Nearly $1B Telecom Services Deal With AT&T
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By
Aaron Boyd
The award is the third under the $50 billion EIS telecom contract as the Sept. 30 deadline nears.
The Justice Department is the third federal agency to pick a vendor to help modernize all its telecommunications services, under a 15-year contract with AT&T worth almost $1 billion.
The telecom giant announced the $984 million award Monday as part of the General Services Administration’s $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions, or EIS, contract. EIS is set to replace the current governmentwide telecom contract vehicles Networx and WITS-3, both of which will expire within the next three years. Agencies are expected to use that transition as an opportunity to fully modernize their communications infrastructure.
“Through this award, the DOJ will transition to a next-generation communications platform supporting more than 120,000 employees across more than 2,100 locations,” AT&T said in a release. That work will include incorporating IP voice and other modern communications tools, as well as data and cloud security and other professional services.
“The AT&T solution will provide DOJ the flexibility and protections to meet their requirements as they aim to strike the right balance between needs to access cloud services from multiple providers and ensuring the access is highly secure,” the release states.
The contract covers the entirety of the Justice Department, including 43 component offices and programs; the enterprisewide Joint Cloud Optimized Trusted Internet Connection Service, or JCOTS; and the law enforcement special communications network FirstNet.
The enterprise contract will be the only EIS award to come out of the Justice Department, the agency told Nextgov, though the FBI will be reissuing its separate solicitation “at a later date.”
AT&T is one of three vendors to complete the security review required before beginning work on an EIS contract, along with Verizon and CenturyLink. Six smaller vendors—BT Federal, CoreTech, Granite, Harris, MetTel and MicroTech—have yet to finish their security authorization work with GSA.
Two other agencies have made their EIS awards this summer: the Railroad Retirement Board, which also went with AT&T, and half of NASA’s requirement under a $10.5 million deal with CenturyLink.
By GSA’s timeline, agencies should be making their major EIS awards before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.