GSA pushes deadline on $50 billion telecom contract

The General Services Administration has pushed the deadline for bids on its $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract back another three weeks, into late February, as it responds to hundreds of questions about the complex request for proposals.

The new deadline of 4 p.m. on Feb. 22 was announced on Jan. 6 in the latest set of responses to questions via the FedBizOpps website and the agency's Interact platform.

EIS is the foundational contract for GSA's overarching Network Services 2020 strategy for future federal IT and telecommunications needs. GSA issued an 890-page RFP on Oct. 16, 2015.

The new delay is the second for EIS bid submissions. In mid-December, GSA officials pushed the original deadline for submissions from Jan. 15 to Jan. 29.

The latest extension followed a deluge of almost 900 questions about myriad details in the huge contract from potential bidders and federal agencies. The questions covered a wide range of intricacies on pricing, definitions and other administrative topics.

Some industry experts said the long list of questions is not unwarranted given the length and complexity of the proposed contract.

Warren Suss, a longtime telecom and federal IT analyst, said the massive contract is one of the largest and most complex the federal government has ever produced. "It's not at all unusual for GSA to delay complex contract deadlines when amendments are made," he added.

GSA has done the initial work of getting significant industry input and agreement before issuing the RFP, Suss said, so the amendments being made now are minor tweaks. However, even small changes to pricing structures can mean significant changes to the structure of bids, which can take some time to incorporate into companies' submissions, he added.