Navy preps networking deal

The Navy is preparing to award a delivery order for networking products and services to cover its locations outside the United States.

The Navy will make its purchase for the program — called Base Level Information Infrastructure Outside the Continental United States (BLII OCONUS) — through one of its two Voice, Video and Data (Vivid) contracts, said Rear Adm. John Gauss, commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. The order will be worth $90 million to $100 million, he said.

The Navy Department is outsourcing its voice, video and data infrastructure via Electronic Data Systems Corp.'s Navy Marine Corps Intranet contract, which covers the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Guantanamo Bay, Iceland and Puerto Rico.

The delivery order will include routers, switches and cable upgrades, Gauss said. "Whether they are identical [to what the Navy gets through NMCI] is not as important as interoperability" with the shore-based infrastructure EDS builds for the Navy, he said.

The four companies that bid for NMCI had submitted proposals with options for covering other Marine Corps and Navy locations outside the United States. But department officials apparently have held back from expanding NMCI to those locations because of the complexity of host-nation agreements for hiring foreign national workers.