Treasury plans set rate for telecom

Treasury Communications Enterprise RFC and solicitation documents

Treasury Department officials intend to buy digital communications services in the future for a fixed monthly fee.

In draft documents released last week to potential bidders, Treasury officials said they would seek a relatively simple method for ordering voice, video, data and wireless services at a fixed monthly rates. If that approach proves feasible, it would represent a sharp departure from the way that Treasury and other federal agencies have purchased data communications services in the past.

Financial and technological changes have transformed the telecommunications industry in the years since Treasury awarded its last big telecommunications contract in 1995. That $1.2 billion agreement with Northrop Grumman Corp. will end in two years. Instead of operating a private wide-area network for Treasury, Northrop Grumman now manages outsourced services from multiple data communications carriers for the department and its bureaus.

Treasury officials said the new contact may include an exchange-sale arrangement in which the department would pass ownership of government-owned switches and routers to the communications contractor, in exchange for exclusive use of the contractor-owned equipment during the contract. Treasury officials expect to award a 10-year contract.

Treasury