VA disconnects Sprint's voice, data services

How the VA is migrating its network services to three other carriers

The U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs will complete a major network transition this fall, migrating from Sprint as its primary service provider to a new architecture that splits telecom traffic across three other carriers: AT&T, Qwest and Verizon.

The migration is significant given the size of VA's network, which links more than 150 hospitals, 780 outpatient clinics and regional offices scattered around the country. The network supports high-bandwidth, high-security applications used by VA's 300,000-plus employees.

The VA's network migration is a sign of the times for federal agencies, which are in the process of transitioning from the expiring FTS2001 telecom contracts to Networx, a 10-year, $20 billion program offering cutting-edge voice, data, video and wireless services. FTS2001 contracts have a continuity of service clause that expires in June 2011.

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The U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs will complete a major network transition this fall, migrating from Sprint as its primary service provider to a new architecture that splits telecom traffic across three other carriers: AT&T, Qwest and Verizon.

The migration is significant given the size of VA's network, which links more than 150 hospitals, 780 outpatient clinics and regional offices scattered around the country. The network supports high-bandwidth, high-security applications used by VA's 300,000-plus employees.

The VA's network migration is a sign of the times for federal agencies, which are in the process of transitioning from the expiring FTS2001 telecom contracts to Networx, a 10-year, $20 billion program offering cutting-edge voice, data, video and wireless services. FTS2001 contracts have a continuity of service clause that expires in June 2011.

While the VA is near completion on its network overhaul, many other federal agencies are behind schedule in migrating from FTS2001 to Networx. The issue is attracting the attention of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whose chair said in April that 62% of the Networx transition effort is incomplete. The committee plans to hold a hearing on Networx migration issues in May.

"The VA has had very, very clear expectations about what they wanted to do, and this [transition to Networx] has been a good one," says Jeff Mohan, executive director of the Networx Program Office at AT&T Government Solutions. Mohan added that for many other agencies, "there is still a lot of work yet to be done."

Powering e-health records

With demand for capacity growing at a clip of 6% a month, the VA's network is at the heart of the agency's mission of providing healthcare and other benefits to an estimated 23 million U.S. veterans. The network's key application is the VA's electronic medical records system known as VISTA.

The VA chose to do a like-for-like network transition using the Networx Universal contract, which is held by AT&T, Qwest and Verizon. Sprint, the VA's incumbent carrier, was the only bidder that lost Networx Universal back in 2007.
The VA ended up with multiple carriers because it split its network services into three categories and bid each one separately under Networx Universal.

"We took a best-value approach to our Networx migration strategy," says Dave Cheplick, Director of Enterprise Infrastructure Engineering and Telecommunications within the VA's Office of Information and Technology. "We were looking at what was going to be available across the Networx program, and we wanted to make sure we had broken down our purchases from a good project management point of view into bundles that we could focus on. This was important given that we have a limited amount of staff to work on the program."

Click to see: List of services VA is using

The VA's three categories of telecom services are:

* Wide-area network, which was awarded to AT&T for an estimated $120 million in 2008. The WAN transition will be done in July.

* Toll-free and inbound/outbound voice services were awarded to Qwest, which also serves as the secondary carrier on the agency's WAN. This deal was estimated at $60 million when it was awarded in 2008. This transition will be done in the fall.