MetTel loses shot at Coast Guard contract

It’s hard to win a contract when you do not submit a proposal, and it’s much harder to file and win a protest when you lose the competition.

MetTel has learned that lesson now that the Government Accountability Office has dismissed its protest of a task order won by rival Verizon.

The Coast Guard chose Verizon to provide a variety of telecommunications services under the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions task order, the main government-wide acquisition contract for telecommunications and network infrastructure services. The value of the task order has not been disclosed.

In its protest, MetTel argued the Coast Guard violated the terms of the EIS contract when it awarded the task order to Verizon.

The Coast Guard countered that it did not consider MetTel for an award because the company never submitted a proposal.

GAO dismissed the protest on Dec. 9 because without a proposal in the mix, it could not consider MetTel as an “interested party.”

MetTel claimed it submitted a proposal, but its attempt to refute the Coast Guard’s assertion came in too late.

Given that EIS is a task order contract and GAO has sole jurisdiction over task order protests, MetTel has little recourse but to accept GAO’s decision.

MetTel’s legal team did not respond to a request for comment.