GSA Releases Telecom Guides

The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service released guidelines that will allow telecommunications companies to provide the government with both local and long-distance services.

Under the guidelines, released Aug. 17, Sprint Communications Corp. of Westwood, Kan., and WorldCom Inc. of Clinton, Miss., may now submit contract modification proposals to provide local telecom services in cities that have Metropolitan Area Acquisition contracts.

Sprint and WorldCom currently provide the federal government with its long-distance services through the FTS2001 contract.

Conversely, the MAA providers in the 21 cities covered by the agreements now may bid on opportunities to provide long-distance services in direct competition with Sprint and WorldCom. These companies include Winstar Communications Inc., AT&T Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., all of New York; Qwest Communications International Inc. of Denver; and BellSouth Corp. of Atlanta.

Proposals will be accepted initially for long-distance services and for seven of the cities with MAA providers: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami and Cincinnati.