Treasury's ready to re-compete TCS network services

The Treasury Department is laying the groundwork for a follow-on contract to the $1.2 billion Treasury Communications Systems.

A draft request for proposals for the Treasury Communications Enterprise will be published Jan. 22; the final RFP for a backbone comm infrastructure is tentatively scheduled to hit the streets March 1. The department wants to award the TCE contract by October.

TCS is now in the eighth year of a 10-year contract held by Northrop Grumman Corp.

Treasury could have chosen to acquire services through an existing governmentwide acquisition contract. "We believe by doing an open competition that we will acquire the most innovative and effective collection of network services for our department, the end users," CIO Drew Ladner said yesterday. "It is important that we have the widest range and the deepest set of ideas and managed services capability."

The contract could be worth as much as $3 billion if all options are exercised, said Priscilla Magnusen, a federal analyst for market researcher Input of Vienna, Va.

Working groups within Treasury have been defining the business and technical requirements for TCE over the past year, Ladner said.

TCS is the largest fully encrypted network in the civilian government. The Northrop Grumman contract, an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity deal, expires Sept. 30, 2005.

Under the 10-year TCE contract, the winning vendor will provide comprehensive network and enterprise services on an IDIQ basis. The contract will have a one-year base and nine one-year options. TCE will incorporate voice, data, video and wireless services.

Mary Mosquera writes for Government Computer News magazine.