Draft RFP for NS2020 debuts
General Services Administration makes self-imposed deadline for the successor to Networx -- albeit barely.
Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Thomas Sharpe and other Government Services Administration officials had said all along that they wanted to release the Network Services 2020 draft request for proposals in February.
They made it with hours to spare.
NS2020, of course, is the expected successor to GSA's Networx contract, which covers a wide range of telecommunications needs. GSA has declared that "the goal of the NS2020 Strategy is to become the federal government’s strategic sourcing center for network-based and network-enabled services," with the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) acquisition outlined in the RFP serving as "the foundation for implementing this strategy."
On the afternoon of Feb. 28, the draft RFP appeared on FedBizOps.gov, outlining (over the course of 13 documents and a few hundred pages) the government's wish list for the following range of services:
- Data Services
- Voice Services
- Contact Center Services
- Colocated Data Center Services
- Cloud Services
- Wireless Services
- Commercial Satellite Communications Services
- Managed Services, including audio and video teleconferencing.
There have been some industry concerns over earlier signals as to how NS2020 was taking shape, but the weekend release of the left telecom experts rushing to determine exactly what the draft RFP includes.
Responses to the draft document are due by 4 p.m. Eastern Time on March 31.