$50B federal telecom RFP coming in mid-October

Mark your calendars: the General Services Administration plans to release the final request for proposals for its huge next-generation telecommunications contract on Oct. 16.

Mary Davie, GSA's assistant commissioner for the Office of Integrated Technology Services, named the new target release date for the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions RFP in an Oct. 1 tweet. EIS is the cornerstone contract for the agency's NS 2020 telecommunications strategy, and will serve as the successor to Networx.

The mid-October release isn’t surprising, as GSA officials have been telling vendors for weeks that they would likely miss the initial Sept. 30 deadline.

In mid-September, GSA officials told FCW that the release of the final RFP for the 15-year, $50 billion telecom contract was on track, but hedged a few days on the exact release date because of the complicated approval cycle for big federal contracts.

GSA also has been working with the Department of Homeland Security to fill out the RFP's cybersecurity sections. Those changes have been noted in GSA's EIS Interact online community. They include optional Colocation Hosting Center Service for all potential EIS customers, consolidating and expanding previous Managed Firewall, Intrusion Detection and Prevention, and Anti-Virus services into a new Managed Prevention Service.

According to GSA, the RFP also supports DHS' cybersecurity mission with an optional DHS Intrusion Prevention Security Service, which uses both classified and unclassified Government Furnished Information to monitor, identify and mitigate potential cybersecurity threats.