GSA Awards AT&T, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, Winstar Communications, and Bell Atlantic Local Telecommunications Services Contracts in Boston

GSA #9715

July 31, 2000
Contact: Eleni Martin (202) 501-1231
eleni.martin@gsa.gov

Washington, DC -- The U.S. General Services Administration today awarded contracts to four companies to provide local telecommunications services to federal government agencies in Boston under its Metropolitan Area Acquisition Program. The combined value of government business is estimated to be $270 million over 8 years - 4 base years plus 4 one-year options.

GSA selected AT&T, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, Winstar Communications, Inc. and Bell Atlantic to provide services in Boston. The Boston service area includes the city of Boston, as well as the counties of Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk.

These awards are the latest results of the Metropolitan Area Acquisition (MAA) Program, which is managed by GSA's Federal Technology Service (FTS). The contracts in Boston bring the total number of cities served by the program to 16. Procurements for the following 4 additional cities are anticipated in the coming months: New Orleans, Albuquerque, Boise and Philadelphia. The contracts provide for standard voice service as well as switched data service and dedicated transmission service offerings. The scope of the contracts allows for the addition of new and leading edge services as they become available in the commercial marketplace.

The contracts in Boston have an estimated value of $270 million over 8 years, with new local service prices that will potentially save the government close to $80 million when compared with standard business rates, and over $78 million when compared with rates currently available to the government. This is an approximately 65% saving over standard business rates and 64% over current government rates. For basic analog voice services, the offered prices will potentially save the government over $35 million when compared to standard business rates and more than $34 million when compared to currently available prices.

"Boston marks an exciting milestone in our acquisition of local telecommunications services," stated Sandra Bates, Commissioner of GSA's Federal Technology Service. "Not only have we achieved a high level of competition and excellent results, but for the first time we have also seen a Regional Bell Operating Company cross over to compete successfully for government business in another RBOC's home market. We believe this is an encouraging sign of things to come as full competition becomes a reality in the local services market."

The MAA Program was conceived shortly after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, in order to bring to the local service environment the same benefits of competition that had been seen in the long distance market since 1984.

As part of its program strategy, FTS has incorporated competition-enhancing terms in its MAA and FTS2001 (long distance) telecommunications contracts, including price management mechanisms and technology refreshment provisions. These are meant to ensure not only that the prices paid by federal government users remain current with the best available in the marketplace, but that the types of services offered remain current with industry trends as well.

For more MAA program specific information, please refer to the GSA FTS website at http://www.gsa.gov/MAA, or call the MAA Program Director, Larry Hazzard at (703) 306-6615.

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BACKGROUND ON PREVIOUS MAA AWARDS

To date, MAA contracts have been awarded for the following cities.

New York: May 20,1999 to AT&T - $359 million maximum contract value - NY MAA service area includes the five boroughs of New York City; Lower Westchester county, NY; Nassau county, NY; Western Suffolk county, NY; Hudson county, NJ; Southern Bergen county, NJ; Eastern Essex county, NJ; Eastern Union county, NJ; Eastern Passaic county, NJ.

Chicago: May 20, 1999 to AT&T - $180 million maximum contract value - Chicago MAA service area includes all sites within the Chicago city limits.

San Francisco: May 20, 1999 to AT&T - $150 million maximum contract value - San Francisco MAA service area includes all sites in the city and county of San Francisco.

Buffalo: February 24, 2000 to Bell Atlantic and AT&T - $40 million maximum contract value - Buffalo MAA service area includes Erie county, New York.

Cincinnati: March 23, 2000 to Winstar Communications Inc.- $100 million maximum contract value - Cincinnati MAA service area includes Hamilton county, Ohio.

Cleveland: March 24, 2000 to Ameritech Corp. and AT&T - $150 million maximum contract value - Cleveland MAA service area includes Cuyahoga county, Ohio.

Los Angeles: March 24, 2000 to Winstar Communications and Pacific Bell - $200 million maximum contract value - Los Angeles MAA service area includes the mainland Los Angeles county, California.

Baltimore: March 28, 2000 to Winstar Communications Inc.- $320 million maximum contract value - Baltimore MAA service area includes the city and county of Baltimore plus the area of Anne Arundel county (District 5) around the Baltimore Washington International Airport.

Atlanta: April 26, 2000 to Winstar Communications, Inc. and Bell South - $520 million maximum contract value - Atlanta MAA service area includes the six counties of Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb, Douglas, Fulton, and Gwinnett.

Miami: April 26, 2000 to Winstar Communications, Inc. and Bell South - $140 million maximum contract value - Miami MAA service area includes Dade and Broward counties.

Indianapolis: April 27, 2000 to Winstar Communications, Inc., SBC Global Services and AT&T - $240 million maximum contract value - Indianapolis MAA service area includes Marion County plus Clay Township in Hamilton County and Pleasant Township in Johnson County.

St. Louis: April 27, 2000 to Winstar Communications, Inc. and Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. - $140 million maximum contract value - St. Louis MAA service area includes the City and County of St. Louis in Missouri plus the Counties of Madison and St. Clair in Illinois.

Minneapolis: May 31, 2000 to USWest and Winstar Communications, Inc. - $60 million maximum contract value - Minneapolis MAA service area includes Hennepin and Ramsey Counties as well as the city of Columbia Heights in Anoka County and Eagan in Dakota County.

Dallas: June 30, 2000 to Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, Winstar Communications, Inc., and AT&T - $470 million maximum contract value - Dallas MAA service area includes Dallas and Tarrant counties, and encompasses the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth.

Denver: July 12, 2000 to AT&T, Qwest Corporation (formerly US West), and Winstar Communications, Inc. - $270 million maximum contract value - Denver MAA service area includes the entire county of Denver, the northern portion of Jefferson county to include the town of Golden (the Golden and Northeast Jefferson Minor Civil Divisions (MCDs)), the southeast portion of Adams county to include Commerce City (the West Adams, North Aurora, and Commerce City MCDs), and the western portion of Arapahoe county (to include the South Aurora and Southwest Arapahoe MCDs).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE METROPOLITAN AREA ACQUISITION (MAA) PROGRAM

Program Level
Nationwide qualification process that certifies competitive local service providers at the program level to provide a set of standard local services.
Continuous competition introduced throughout the life of the contract with a price management mechanism to ensure timely and continued pricing.
One-stop-shopping local service contract with a broad scope for future local and long distance service integration and other new commercial services. Government customers on par with commercial customers�Government gets access to new services at same pace as commercial marketplace.
Four base years plus four one-year options indefinite delivery/indefinite quantify fixed price contract with flexible provision for agencies' specific requirements.
Significant price reduction due to competition.

Service Level
Comprehensive range of local service offerings including voice services with Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) capabilities, Circuit-Switched Data Services, and Dedicated Transmission Services. Additional advanced and emerging services such as Packet Switched, Internet Protocol (IP), Frame Relay (FR), Asynchronous transfer Mode (ATM), Switched Multi-megabit Data Service (SMDS), Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), Video Teleconferencing, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Services are in scope for addition when needed.
Feature-rich voice services with many features included as part of basic service package and as options. Services also include provision for National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) capabilities.
No per-minute usage charge for Government-to-Government calls on the contractor's network.
Number portability supported when agencies move to a new service provider.
New services are compatible with existing ISDN equipment with no new equipment costs to agencies.
Detailed pricing by NPA-NXX.
Six flexible service delivery point options that allow agencies to acquire partial or turnkey services.
Flexible solutions for ensuring quality inside wiring and achieving connectivity throughout a building.
Wide range of support services including responsive ordering, billing, network troubleshooting, repair capabilities, infrastructure inventory, etc.
Continuous competition designed to allow agencies to act as "smart shoppers" in a commercial-like marketplace.