“The General Services Administration’s Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program didn’t get the flood of solicitations many expected by March 31, but it did get hit with a deluge of protests.”
“Awards by the departments of Commerce and Veterans Affairs, and the solicitation to support the Air Force Air Education and Training Command are all facing complaints before the Government Accountability Office.”
“’Vendors spent lot of time and money to get on EIS and have been patiently waiting for the task orders to come out,’ said Gary Wall, CEO of Coastal Communications Consulting Group and a former telecommunications branch chief for the Department of Health and Human Services. ‘I think vendors are looking for their return on investment, especially the newcomers, so when agencies put out these large, winner-take-all solicitations, you have one winner versus multiple winners, and the losing bidders will scrutinize these awards and think they have been disadvantaged in some way.’”
“The two protests of the VA award to MetTel, which was for $127.3 million to provide voice services, both claim the unsuccessful bidders were wronged.”
“Granite Telecommunications and CenturyLink filed separate protests on March 9, claiming if VA had evaluated bids properly someone else other than MetTel would’ve won. GAO has until June 17 to decide.”
“CenturyLink also submitted a protest on April 8 of Commerce’s multiple awards to Verizon and AT&T.”
“Commerce divided its EIS task orders into six task areas. CenturyLink says awards were made to Verizon under task 1, which is valued at $243.8 million, and to AT&T for tasks three and five, valued at $59.9 million and $14.8 million, respectively…”
“The Verizon protest is a bit different than the other three. The company lodged a pre-award complaint with GAO over the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization solicitation to buy internet protocol service, access arrangement, internet protocol voice service, managed service, and managed network service for the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command, Air Force Recruiting Service…” Read the full article here.
Source: Commerce, VA, Air Force face protests of telecom modernization contracts – By Jason Miller, April 16, 2020. Federal News Network.
