AT&T receives VA network contract

AT&T Inc. has been awarded a $17.2 million order from the Veterans Affairs Department to assist with the development of a single-backbone, multiprotocol label switching network.

The MPLS network will supply additional bandwidth to VA's current network and support its dual-carrier architecture.

The General Services Administration awarded the three-year contract on behalf of VA under the Federal Technology Service 2001 Long Distance Crossover program.

AT&T will migrate about 48 VA distribution and core layer sites to the AT&T MPLS Private Network Transport Service, a virtual private network that is the nation's first and highest-bandwidth all-MPLS network, which is based on a highly secure and scalable IP-based infrastructure.

AT&T also will provide networking services, such as engineering and design, network monitoring, on-site installation and integration, program management and router services for the network migration.

Mary Mosquera is a staff writer for Washington Technology's affiliate publication, Government Computer News.