MetTel-Raytheon alliance targets EIS opportunities

MetTel has formed an alliance with Raytheon to bring a broad a range of combined cybersecurity offerings into the federal market.

Raytheon is part of MetTel’s team for the General Services Administration's $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract awarded in August.

“Cyber is what they live and breathe every day,” said Ed Fox, vice president of network services for MetTel. “We also wanted to ratchet up our security in our own backbone.’

MetTel is a relative newcomer in the federal space and did not have the breadth of cyber experience with government customers. “We figured teaming with Raytheon was the way to go,” he said.

With the transition from the current Networx contract to EIS, agencies will need to update and upgrade their managed trusted internet protocol services as well as their trusted internet connections. This is where Raytheon’s cyber capabilities will be a plus for MetTel, Fox said.

“Raytheon will operate those nodes for us,” he said.

Together the companies will provide a range of cybersecurity offerings and support the migration from legacy technologies. That aims to ensure cybersecurity is designed into the government’s telecommunications infrastructure.

The alliance also will target IT modernization and cybersecurity priorities including the emerging security challenges posed by internet-connected devices like computers, routers and security cameras.

MetTel's alliance with Raytheon is with the latter's cybersecurity services business which also includes Blackbird and Forcepoint. In at least one case, Forcepoint is leading an effort with Raytheon and MetTel providing the services, Fox said.

The partnership with Raytheon brings more “feet on the street” as MetTel will rely on Raytheon personnel to respond to customer needs such as incident remediation, change management and vulnerability scanning to name a few.

MetTel also hopes to pull Raytheon’s capabilities into commercial work as well, Fox said.

Right now MetTel and the other EIS winners are still working on their authority-to-operate designations but requests for information and solicitations are coming fast and furious.

“There have been so many that we have had to pick and choose,” Fox said.

Any awards that are made would be contingent on receiving an ATO, Fox said.