GSA works to speed telecom transition

Although the General Services Administration's plans to provide bidders for the $50 billion, 15-year Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract with feedback on their proposals by late July slipped a few weeks, the transition to the next-generation contract still looms.

GSA continues to move steadily ahead with EIS transition plans, said Mary Davie, assistant commissioner of GSA's Office of Integrated Technology Services, in an Aug. 16 blog post.

A signal of that progress, Davie said, was GSA's July completion of unification of its 11 Regional Network Service programs and program offices into a single national Network Services program.

Reminding agencies that they have limited time to complete their EIS transition plans, Davie said GSA has launched a new EIS Transition website for agencies and industry. The site, she said, is a center for transition resources, like statement of work creation and pointers to where agencies' Transition Inventory can be found.

GSA also has a new EIS Transition Handbook, available through the transition website or EIS Interact.

GSA wants to avoid a repeat of the lengthy six-year transition period for its last big telecommunications contract Networx. The agency hopes to have the EIS transition completed by May 2020, after awarding the contract this fall.

"Once GSA awards EIS, federal agencies will begin to issue task and service orders and start moving telecom services to EIS starting in early 2017," Davie said.