WASHINGTON-Almost by default, GTE Corp.’s Government Systems division was awarded the General Services Administration’s eight-year post-FTS2000 federal wireless telecommunications services contract Nov. 12.
Current FTS2000 service providers Sprint Corp. and AT&T Corp. bowed out of the process earlier this year, citing hardcore problems with contract wording.
GTE then was the only remaining bidder. GTE and the federal government will have the option to extend the contract period by three years and then by five one-year periods.
“By pulling together the resources within GTE and drawing the capabilities of our various partners, GTE has created a team that is uniquely capable of providing government users the highest quality wireless services at the best possible value,” said John Messier, president of GTE Government Systems.
Although GTE will remain the single point of contact for all government agencies that choose to participate in the wireless program, the company plans to subcontract much of the purported $300 million contract to Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile. According to that company’s president Gary Schulman, “Our team is in place and ready to hit the ground running. We will capitalize on our extensive experience servicing the U.S. government.”
GTE also plans to recruit 54 cellular providers nationwide and in U.S. territories to help provide ubiquitous wireless voice and data service for the contract-at rates 20 percent to 60 percent below those paid by other consumers-to as many as 3 million civilian and military federal workers.
The contract winner attributed the possibility of these low prices to economies of scale in centralized account management, service provisioning, customer service, performance analysis and billing.
“National account management is the cornerstone of this contract,” said Ben Kahrnoff, GTE Wireless’s vice president and general manager of national sales and distribution. “Our team has extensive experience in managing large, nationwide commercial accounts and will bring to the government the cost savings and management benefits that our corporate customers now enjoy.”
Signed on as part of the service-provider team are Artel Inc., an information systems technology company that develops wireless network architectures; Pana-Pacific Corp., which will manage equipment fulfillment and warranty services; and Prime Performance Technologies Inc., which will develop software for a remote-access, services-order tracking system.
