50% transition to EIS target remains elusive for agencies
Less than a quarter of agencies have completed 50% of their transition to the $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract intended to modernize their telecommunications and IT, despite the deadline for that target being March 31.
A total of 50 agencies — including 12 of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies — have achieved the 50% mark, according to the General Services Administration‘s monthly EIS Transition Progress Tracking Report dashboard for August.
Still more than 200 agencies have transition inventory and billing under the expiring Networx, Washington Interagency Telecommunications System (WITS) 3 and GSA Regional Local Service (RLS) contracts. Those contracts sunset on May 31, 2023, eight months after all agencies’ telecom inventory must be moved to EIS.
All the while, the EIS program has seen some shakeups of late.
Jim Russo, branch chief of the Solutions Development at GSA, retired from that role last month. He led a team of network and wireless engineering professionals working on the EIS program and had a hand in making secure telecom and network services like multi-protocol label switching, ethernet, Internet Protocol voice, managed network services, and cybersecurity offerings available through the contract.
Also last month Comcast announced a deal to acquire Defined Technologies, a subsidiary of MicroTech. GSA awarded MicroTech its EIS prime contractor status in 2017, but the company transferred the contract to Defined Technologies in November — meaning Comcast is poised to take over that business once the deal is closed.
While it’s a bit early to tell what the two developments could mean for agencies’ EIS progress, most have awarded their task orders.
GSA’s target for awarding all EIS task orders was Sept. 30, 2019, and currently, 142, or 68.3%, of all expected ones have been.
Among CFO Act agencies, only six have task orders outstanding.
None of the departments of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development or the Environmental Protection Agency have begun awarding their single EIS task orders. Similarly, the Department of Energy hasn’t started the process for awarding the two task orders it has planned.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has awarded one of its two task orders, and the Department of Homeland Security has awarded only three of its 14 outstanding task orders.
Some agencies have completed their transitions to EIS: two medium and 32 small ones. The medium agencies are the Executive Office of the President and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
This story was featured in FedScoop Special Report: Network Modernization - A FedScoop Special Report
