U.S. government seeks bids for massive telecom buy

Network World - The U.S. government is seeking bids on a 10-year, $20 billion telecommunications services contract believed to be the largest pending network deal in the world. Carriers say they're ready to respond.
The Networx program is designed to provide legacy and leading-edge voice, data and video services to all U.S. federal agencies. Most major U.S. telecommunications carriers -- AT&T Corp., MCI Inc., SBC Communications Inc., Sprint Corp., Qwest Communications International Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. -- plan to bid on the request for proposals (RFP) issued last week by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). The Networx bids are due in early August, and the selection will be announced in April 2006.
"We view Networx as an important part of our future overall," said Ed Bursk, vice president of government at Global Crossing Ltd. "We do expect to make a major play into it. We have a team that has been working on this for almost a year now. We've been looking at the RFPs ... and there are no real surprises from our perspective."
"Qwest is still very interested in Networx," said Jim Payne, senior vice president and general manager of Denver-based Qwest's government services division. "This has been at the CEO level from almost the beginning. What everyone including Qwest will be doing now is refining their business cases and validating their approaches."
The GSA plans to award multiple contracts under its Networx program, which is divided into two parts: Universal and Enterprise.
Networx Universal covers 37 domestic and international telecommunications services, ranging from older frame-relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode to cutting-edge virtual private networks and voice over IP. Likely universal bidders include AT&T, MCI, Sprint, SBC and Qwest.
Networx Enterprise, which is geared toward smaller carriers, includes a core set of IP and wireless services in particular geographic regions. Likely bidders on that part of the program include Global Crossing, Verizon, Level 3 Communications Inc., WilTel Communications Group Inc., IDT Corp. and Broadwing Communications LLC.
While the GSA estimated that it will spend as much as $20 billion on Networx over the next decade, the winning bidders are guaranteed significantly less revenue. Following the usual practice in federal contracting, the government has committed to spend only $525 million on the Universal contracts and $50 million on the Enterprise contracts.
Networx will replace a series of contracts known as FTS2001 that will expire in 2007. MCI and Sprint hold the main FTS2001 contracts, but Qwest, AT&T, SBC and other rivals hold what are called crossover contracts that allow them