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Extending Current Telecommunications Contracts To Allow For Successful EIS Transition

| Alan Thomas, FAS Commissioner
Post filed in: Acquisition

In July 2017, GSA awarded the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract, a game-changing information technology (IT) contract that will improve how the federal government modernizes legacy IT and telecommunications infrastructure. The $50 billion, 15-year, Best-in-Class acquisition vehicle is a one-stop shop for infrastructure modernization and replaces the legacy contracts that expire on or before May 2020.  

As part of our continuous engagement and dialogue with our federal agency customers and industry partners, GSA will extend the expiring contracts - Networx, WITS, and local service agreements - for up to a maximum of three years (one year base with two one-year options). Extending the existing legacy contracts provides agencies with additional time to transition and modernize in one step. GSA has asked agencies to release their EIS solicitations by March 31, 2019.  

Agencies must continue working hard to finalize their modernization plans, budget appropriately, engage with stakeholders, including EIS suppliers, and develop thorough implementation plans that will ensure successful transition.

In order to support our agency partners to the maximum extent possible during this critical modernization effort, we will continue to offer multiple tools to federal agencies that need transition assistance. These include a quarterly Infrastructure Advisory Group, where we can have more detailed discussions with our federal partners and our Transition Ordering Assistance program, which includes transition planning, solicitation drafting, and expert guidance. We have also designated agency managers to support each agency and understand their unique needs, and have published many resources online including: transition guides, a fair opportunity & ordering guide, training opportunities, and interaction with subject matter experts via our Interact community.

I look forward to keeping you updated on this pivotal work as we continue our partnership with our customer agencies to help them improve operations and citizen services through EIS.