AT&T wins EPA communications contract

AT&T Government Solutions caught a sweeping win when the Environmental Protection Agency selected the company to be both its primary communications services provider and Managed Trusted IP Services network provider.

The $29 million, seven-year task order, awarded under the General Services Administration’s Networx telecommunications acquisition, was made under the Enterprise portion of the contract.

With the selection of AT&T, EPA is going with something of a known quantity. Under GSA’s FTS2001 predecessor to Networx, AT&T provided the agency with private line services, local exchange services, Internet and mobility/wireless services.

Under the new contract, AT&T will deploy a converged, managed IP network solution as part of the agency’s EPA WAN 2010 Project to modernize its wide-area network architecture.

The foundation for the new WAN is AT&T’s Multiprotocol Label Switching-enabled network. The fully managed, scalable data network will let the agency securely incorporate new applications via a virtual private network connecting 17,000 employees at its Washington headquarters, 10 regional offices and 27 laboratories nationwide.

Security fulfilling terms of the Office of Management and Budget’s Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) initiative and the Homeland Security Department’s technology requirements will be provided under a Networx MTIPS contract modification AT&T won.

Under MTIPS, EPA's Internet traffic will be protected by technology offerings such as intrusion detection services, intrusion protection services, incident response, managed firewall services and anti-virus management.

"The EPA needs an approach to security that not only enables the agency to exchange data in a secure fashion but also stops threats before they make it to the front door," said Don Herring, senior vice president of AT&T's government division, in a written statement. The new network will increase EPA’s ability to “securely share environmental information between its many nationwide offices and stakeholders, including businesses, state and local government partners, and public citizens.”

DHS has certified AT&T’s MTIPS solution as fully complying with OMB’s TIC requirements, the company said. TIC requires agencies to reduce the number of connections to the public Internet and provide secure IP portals for agency traffic to and from the public Internet.