FTS 2001 vendors eye GovNet opportunity

A proposal to create a secure government intranet dubbed GovNet is on hold pending Congressional appropriation of $5 million for a feasibility study. In the meantime, suppliers on the government's FTS 2001 program are looking for opportunities to meet the government's network security needs with their existing contracts.

Conceived by White House cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke, GovNet would be a secure, private IP network shared by government agencies. It would have no connection to the Internet or other public or private networks to keep it immune from viruses and denial-of-service attacks. It would carry voice, data and video traffic - all encrypted.

At Clarke's request, the General Services Administration in October issued a request to industry to submit ideas about GovNet's design, feasibility and cost. The GSA received more than 160 responses in November and has been reviewing them. Clarke is looking to get $5 million appropriated to the GSA's budget to continue studying GovNet.

Some observers believe the idea may be studied to death.

"GovNet's fizzling," says Ray Bjorklund, vice president of consulting services at Federal Sources, a market research firm. "My belief is that it's too expensive to build a parallel network. I think it's going to need to be on a common carrier backbone, but with traffic encrypted and controlled. … They need extremely sophisticated security management."

Meanwhile, the GSA's FTS 2001 program is beefing up its network security offerings. The FTS 2001 program already offers managed firewalls, encryption, PKI and other security services from multiple vendors including WorldCom, Sprint and soon AT&T.

Now GSA is developing five levels of security offerings for FTS 2001 that range from firewalls at the low end to air-gapped security at the high end. These levels of security service will allow agencies to get a discounted price for the exact level of security that's required for a particular application, says Dennis Groh, who oversees the FTS 2001 program for the GSA.

"We could satisfy some of the needs of GovNet under the contract by the end of [September]," Groh says. "Why should they go to another acquisition vehicle? The security needs are huge, and we can meet them with great processes."

FTS 2001 suppliers say they can bolster the government's cybersecurity at a much lesser cost than GovNet, which would cost billions of dollars to build with its dedicated routers and isolated fiber optics.

"All of the tools available to build a secure IP network are on FTS 2001," says Dave Pragel, manager of FTS 2001 engineering and revenue services for Sprint. "There's no new technologies, no new inventions, no new software that's needed. The question is whether it's more efficient or cost effective."

Although the Bush administration has requested a 15% increase in security spending for next year, it's unclear how much of that money is headed to network security software or hardware, industry experts say. And no federal agencies has received any of the funds yet.

"Some of the agencies have been waiting to see if there's additional appropriations for some of these security services or if they have to be more efficient and take it out of their current [network] budgets," says Diana Gowen, vice president of government markets for WorldCom. "Lots of times when they talk about increasing security budgets it's for guards."

Gowen adds: "Agencies are not saying: 'I have a blank checkbook [for security], and it's gold plated."'

— Carolyn Duffy Marsan

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Read Sprint's contract for FTS2001
From Sprint Business.

FTS2001 Resource Guide
From WorldCom.

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