Some federal agencies are not going to make the Sept. 30 deadline to award GSA\u2019s new Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program contracts, according to Allen Hill, director of GSA\u2019s Office of Telecommunication Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s okay,\u201d Hill said, speaking at an American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council event Aug. 21. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked at the executive level with agencies\u201d about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EIS contract is a new telecommunications contract by GSA that is weaning agencies off of legacy telecom contracts. GSA writes that the contract structure will \u201cimprove how the federal government modernizes legacy IT and telecommunications infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill said that leaders at one agency realized they didn\u2019t have the proper modernization in place in their solicitation. That agency, he said, pulled their solicitation back and redid it with more modernization incorporated. Hill applauded the anonymous agency for taking the step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s important,\u201d he said. If they did not pull the contract back, that \u201cdefeats the whole purpose of the transition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are currently nine companies included in the contract that is meant to serve as the go-to contract for enterprise telecommunications and networking solutions. The multiple award contracts are potentially worth $50 billion over 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verizon, CenturyLink and AT&T have received their ATOs. Some of the telecom providers in the mix for the EIS solutions are still awaiting their authorization to operate. The remainder will get their ATOs soon, Hill said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have several companies right now right in the mix of getting their ATOs here in the next month and the rest in the next two months,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill said that more and more agencies are preparing for the EIS transition and that agencies need to be meticulous in laying out what they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extremely important to be deliberate in the beginning,\u201d Hill said. \u201cBecause there\u2019s a lot of mission needs that agencies have and they\u2019re complex.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the process continues to move forward, Hill said that one of his team\u2019s most important roles in the process is being able to \u201cfill the gaps\u201d after the solicitations are out and the agencies start transitioning, a hypothetical that he said is \u201cgoing to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gaps, he said, include events like agencies realizing they need more services from the vendor that they left out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be very closely tied with each of these offices to make sure that if there\u2019s anything missing, we\u2019re immediately providing support to ensure those gaps are filled,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of the vendors involved in GSA\u2019s new Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract have yet to get their authorization to operate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[104,106,36,31,110,14,33,6],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3242],"class_list":["post-15842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acquisition-update","category-daily-brief","category-gsa","category-home","category-it-cloud-report","category-it-networks","category-newsletters","category-acquisition"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"IRFWBBQYZJB7JOALCZZPPQ7CXI","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2019\/08\/21\/will-agencies-start-to-modernize-their-telecom-in-time\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n