AT&T prevails in fight for classified NSA IT contract
By
Nick Wakeman
GAO has rejected a bid protest by DXC Technologies that clears the way for AT&T to take over part of NSA's classified IT infrastructure work.
AT&T has prevailed in a bid protest battle over a lucrative and classified National Security Agency contract.
The $2.5 billion contract is part of NSA’s work to recompete the multi-billion dollar Groundbreaker IT infrastructure contract held by CSRA.
CSRA has already won one of the three parts known as Greenway.
AT&T won a second part in October but that award was protested by DXC Technologies.
The Government Accountability Office on Thursday ruled against DXC so the contract is now clear for AT&T.
DXC declined to comment and AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.
That is not surprising given the nature of the work.
Thanks to CSRA's regulatory filings, we know that the portion they won was worth $2.4 billion but beyond that the company has said little. Analysts have speculated that CSRA was a subcontractor on two of Groundbreaker's recompete portions other than Greenway, but the company has never confirmed such.
Portion three of the recompete has not been awarded yet to our knowledge.
The details of the DXC protest may not come to light for quite a while. GAO goes through a vetting process before releasing its decisions.
The protesting company, the contract winner and the agency all can weigh in on what is released and what is not. Given the classified nature of this contract and the customer, it might never be released.
But we’ll ask for sure.
With this decision, NSA can begin transitioning the work to AT&T.
This is another big win in the government market for AT&T. They hold the multi-billion dollar FirstNet contract to build a nationwide wireless infrastructure for first responders. And it has a spot on the General Services Administration's $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract that replaced Networx.