Jane Edwards
At least 30 percent of federal agencies have been given another year to transition from the Networx contract to the General Services Administration’s 15-year, $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions vehicle for telecommunications services, Federal Times reported Thursday.
The COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain challenges further disrupted the shift to the EIS contract, which was awarded by GSA in 2017.
“Just as we were getting our [authorities to operate], just as we’re ready to hit the ground running, just as the government’s ready, boom, we get hit with COVID,” said Don Parente, vice president of public sector sales at MetTel.
“You have [requests for proposals] that are out there, and now all of a sudden, your source selection committee can’t be in the same office,” he added.
In 2018, the Federal Communications Commission issued a directive that provides telecom companies the authority to decide whether to replace the Plain Old Telephone Service and other legacy services and retire landline copper lines.
“That’s also creating a little bit of turmoil because you’re seeing carriers raise the price in some areas and shut down services in others,” Parente said of the directive. “In a lot of ways, what was contemplated six years ago when EIS was first awarded, some of those services are going away very quickly.”
