AT&T showcases its Networx wares

AT&T holds event for government agencies it hopes will become customers

AT&T on Thursday showed off its services to government agencies with the hope of winning some of the $20 billion worth of business that will come from the General Services Administration’s Networx Universal contract.

The GSA awarded its 10-year Networx contract in late March. AT&T along with Verizon Business and Qwest Communications were the big winners.

Qwest and Verizon already held their Networx showcases earlier this month, where representatives from many government agencies went to hear more about what the service providers can offer them.

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AT&T on Thursday showed off its services to government agencies with the hope of winning some of the $20 billion worth of business that will come from the General Services Administration’s Networx Universal contract.

The GSA awarded its 10-year Networx contract in late March. AT&T along with Verizon Business and Qwest Communications were the big winners.

Qwest and Verizon already held their Networx showcases earlier this month, where representatives from many government agencies went to hear more about what the service providers can offer them.

AT&T Government Solutions, a business unit within AT&T, put on today’s event highlighting its Transition Management Center, says Don Herring, a senior vice president at AT&T Government Solutions.

The center is staffed with certified program managers who will help customers make the transition from the GSA’s previous telecommunications contract, FTS 2001, as well as from individual contract arrangements.

AT&T was not part of the FTS 2000 or FTS 2001 GSA contract awards, but the carrier won some large individual contracts with the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Justice and the Veterans Administraion during the years it was not part of those umbrella contracts.

Herring points out that customers, such as the IRS or DoJ, also will have the opportunity to migrate from their existing contracts to Networx, and would do so through the carrier’s transition center.

AT&T also is highlighting its service capabilities and broad set of assets, which it didn’t have the last time the GSA awarded a telecommunications contract, Herring says. AT&T is showcasing its “wireless assets from Cingular, legacy SBC and Bellsouth services, and legacy (AT&T) services. We couldn’t offer this just a few years ago.”

And like Qwest and Verizon, AT&T is awaiting GSA testing so it can start locking down contracts with individual agencies. Although internal testing of Networx services, billing and operations support system platforms have been underway for quite a while at AT&T, the GSA plans to test each service from each carrier to make it lives up to the promises the carriers made in their responses to the GSA's RFP.

That testing is expected to be completed by the fall.

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