AT&T Government Solutions said yesterday it has won a contract worth as much as $1 billion to provide a high-speed communications network to the Treasury Department.
The department is seeking a secure network to carry voice, video and data traffic between its more than 1,000 U.S. locations and for tens of thousands of users worldwide. The department's operations include such agencies as the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Mint. AT&T said the network will combine several older systems, allowing broader use of live video link-ups and phone calls over the Internet.
The Treasury Communications Enterprise contract is to last three years with seven one-year options that could push its value to $1 billion, Vienna-based AT&T Government Solutions said.
The network will be completed by next August, the company said. It will replace one run by Northrop Grumman Corp., according to the Treasury Department.
The contract is part of a government-wide effort to modernize telecommunications and information technology, said Darren Bezdek, a senior analyst at Input Inc., a Reston firm that tracks government contracts.
A similar contract was awarded in October by the U.S. Postal Service to Lockheed Martin Corp. and is worth up to $3 billion. The Universal Computing Connectivity program will provide data, voice, video, wireless and managed security services to the Postal Service's 37,000 locations and integrate all its data communication networks into one network.
"What you're seeing here is the reduction of multiple networks into single networks," Bezdek said. "This is all about modernization."
The value of updating to one network can be as simple as allowing employees to plug in laptops in various locations, Bezdek said, or as complicated as providing a single system of encrypted security for sensitive data.
"You have one network to protect rather than several hundred entry points," he said.
Also, using Internet technology to make phone calls can save departments millions of dollars in long-distance charges, Bezdek said.
The General Services Administration is considering bids for a $10 billion contract to provide telecommunications services across the government. And the Department of Veterans Affairs is also seeking proposals for a telecommunications project.
AT&T's team on the Treasury Department contract includes GTSI Corp. of Chantilly; SRA International Inc. of Fairfax, Accenture LLP, which has operations in Reston; BAE Systems PLC, which has its federal operations in McLean; DreamHammer Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif.; and Lucent Technologies Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J.
