GSA drafts Network Services 2020 RFP
The General Services Administration released a draft request for proposals over the weekend for the telecommunications and network system framework to succeed its Networx contract vehicle.
GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services introduced the draft RFP for its anticipated Network Services 2020 Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions, or EIS, contract Saturday afternoon “that will make it easier for Agencies to acquire telecommunications and IT infrastructure services.”
NS2020, in support of the Digital Government Strategy, is GSA’s acquisition strategy “to become the federal government’s strategic sourcing center for network-based and network-enabled services,” according to the extensive RFP.
EIS is at the center of NS2020 with the goal of making “the resulting contracts as flexible and agile as possible to meet and satisfy the widely differing requirements of the federal agencies both now and for the next decade and beyond.” The plan is for EIS to be broad in scope “and include a wide range of pre-defined commonly procured items to enable one-stop shopping.”
According to the draft RFP, the following services will be mandatory under the EIS:
- Virtual Private Network Service
- Ethernet Service
- Voice
- Managed Network Services
Networx, which 136 federal agencies use to buy their network services currently, is still a booming business for GSA. Last year, agencies spent $1.53 billion using the contract vehicle, up 13 percent from 2013. GSA published a strategy for the transition from Networx to NS2020 in April 2014.
GSA wants comments from potential contractors and agencies on the NS2020 EIS draft RFP by March 31.
