Comcast wins $102M piece of DISA's commercial gateway effort

Comcast wins a $102.8 million contract to help the Defense Information Systems Agency replace legacy circuits in one U.S. region with ethernet connections for accessing the military’s global information network.

Comcast has won a potential 10-year, $102.8 million contract to help the Defense Information Systems Agency replace legacy circuits in one U.S. region with ethernet connections for accessing the military’s global information network.

The telecommunications conglomerate’s government services organization won out over four other bidders, according to the Pentagon’s daily digest.

Work will take place over a six-year base period and potentially a pair of two-year options.

DISA awarded the contract as part of its Commercial Ethernet Gateway initiative, through which the agency accesses the commercial telecom service providers’ owned, leased and operated networks.

Users then use the Gateways to connect to the Department of Defense Information Network, also known as DODIN.

The gateway portion Comcast won is for Gateway Region 3 that covers Maryland and Washington, D.C. Last year, Comcast secured the contract for Region 1 that covers New England.

An exact timeline for awards of the other regions is not clear. But DISA’s industry forecast for 2019 indicates the agency has divided the continental U.S. into 12 regions and source selections would take place throughout this current federal fiscal year.