Carriers submit bids - and thousands of pages - for record $20B federal pact

The nation’s largest carriers – AT&T, Verizon Business, Sprint Nextel and Qwest – plan to submit today final bids on the main contract under the 10-year, $20 billion federal Networx program.

Networx is believed to be the largest pending network deal in the world.

The General Services Administration (GSA) runs the Networx program, which covers domestic and international voice, data, video and wireless services for all U.S. federal agencies.

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The nation’s largest carriers – AT&T, Verizon Business, Sprint Nextel and Qwest – plan to submit today final bids on the main contract under the 10-year, $20 billion federal Networx program.

Networx is believed to be the largest pending network deal in the world.

The General Services Administration (GSA) runs the Networx program, which covers domestic and international voice, data, video and wireless services for all U.S. federal agencies.

Networx is split into two parts: Networx Universal, which provides everything from legacy frame-relay and asynchronous transfer mode services to cutting-edge VPNs and VoIP; and Networx Enterprise, which is focused on emerging IP and wireless services.

Carriers are submitting their best and final offers on Networx Universal today.

Best and final offers are submitted in two parts. The technical and management proposals were filed last week, and the final pricing is due Dec. 20.

GSA plans to award Networx Universal in March.

Putting together the final Networx bid is "an all-consuming effort," says Diana Gowen, senior vice president of Qwest Government Services Division. "We’ve been pulling [the bid] apart, looking for where we can get costs out of it. Most of my competitors have been doing the same thing for the last couple of weeks."

Qwest has a team of 30 people working on Networx, but this team is getting help from product, proposal and sales teams across the company.

"We’ve had hundreds of people contribute to this bid," Gowen says. "It was the core team that was working around the clock all weekend long doing the pricing. And they were working the weekend before doing the technical and management bid . . . .They will be quite relieved at 2 p.m. on Wednesday," when the bid is submitted.

Hank Beebe, AT&T’s chief engineer and lead on its Networx bid, says his team’s management and technical best and final offer was more than 5,000 pages long. The company’s pricing bid has between seven and eight million individual price cells in the spreadsheet.

"We are very glad that it’s BAFO time," Beebe says, referring to the best and final offers. He added that it has taken his team 45 days to get the final technical and pricing bids ready. "It’s lots better than having it due right after the holidays."

AT&T has 18 people dedicated to Networx, but the company has been tapping the expertise of many of the 4,000 people that work for its federal division.

"It’s been very gratifying to see how the whole company has pulled behind this bid," Beebe says. "The people who do access, the people who do network, the people who do each of our products have all helped put together this bid. They’ve been working on it not just for the last few weeks, but for the last many months."

While it is the largest federal telecom program, Networx also has a ripple effect across the telecom industry, because it is so huge and will last for a decade.

The Networx Universal teams involve many top-tier U.S. service providers:

-- AT&T’s team includes Cingular Wireless and Global Crossing.