The same federal agency charged with awarding a $20 billion telecommunications contract this morning apparently cannot handle the task of completing a simple conference call. And, since those being put upon in this instance were members of the press, you can be certain the bureaucrats caught in the crossfire heard about it … once connections were made. Here’s more from my Network World colleague Carolyn Duffy Marsan, who was among those left in lurch:
The General Service Administration botched the conference call for the Networx press conference today. Reporters from AP, the Wall Street Journal, thestreet.com, Network World and others were left on hold for 20 minutes before being patched into the press conference. Then, due to technical difficulties, we couldn’t hear the questions and answers by GSA officials.
Isn’t this ironic, given that Networx is the largest telecommunications services contract ever? The GSA couldn’t even manage a conference call?
The GSA arranged a 10-minute Q&A for all the reporters who didn’t get to hear the original conference. The AP reporter asked if the GSA was embarrassed that it couldn’t manage a conference call as it was announcing the award of the world’s largest telecom services buy.
The GSA refused to answer the question.
Honestly, there is no answer to a question like that one.
(Update: An explanation from the GSA spokesman regarding what happened: “Can’t tell you how much I regret the call-in problem. We set it up as we always do and have come to expect great service. Our issue was that we didn’t establish contact with the bridge line from inside the press conference room. We should have established this well before the start of the press conference and I’m afraid that crucial detail missed us – got everything else but one of the most critical details. Please accept my apology and my assurance we’ll not let it happen again.”)
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