COMMUNICATIONS DAILY MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2000
Dec. 6 Deadline Looms MORE THAN 25% OF GOVT. FACILITIES HAVEN’T SWITCHED TO FTS 2001 About 27% of federal locations hadn’t transitioned to FTS 2001 contract as self-imposed deadline of Sept. 30 elapsed, General Services Administration (GSA) said. GSA and Sprint said transition should be basically complete by Dec. 6, after which FTS 2000 interim contract with Sprint and AT&T expires. Some phone lines won’t make that deadline, and Sprint and AT&T haven’t signed agreements that would set rates beyond deadline. Officials expect some agencies and companies to work out bridge contract before then, but rates could rise, especially for AT&T’s customers because AT&T isn’t vendor in FTS 2001 and has no incentive to keep its rates low. GSA said 13,400 of 50,000 govt. locations hadn’t switched over to FTS 2001 since contract was awarded in Dec. 1998 and Jan. 1999. Sprint has "a few thousand orders" yet to receive before it completes moving its govt. customers over to FTS 2001 contract, Govt. Systems Div. Vp Anthony D’Agata said, but will have nearly all its lines switched before Dec. 6. "We did not expect it to take this long," he said, and had planned to complete changeover by summer. D’Agata said GSA hadn’t contacted Sprint on what will happen to agencies that don’t make Dec. 6 deadline, he said, but he expects to sign some sort of extension. GSA also said Sprint had billed $71.2 million so far under FTS 2001 contract and WorldCom $117 million. Both companies have minimum revenue guarantees (MRGs) of $750 million over life of contract, which is for 4 years with 4 one-year extensions. GSA and Govt. Accounting Office (GAO) have said carriers will reach MRGs in 6th year, and GAO said MRG applied to entire 8-year contract. But that opinion would limit GSA from reviewing contract after 4 years and seeking price discounts, thus lengthening time needed to reach MRGs, said Lisa Crawford, procurement consultant who formerly headed AT&T’s FTS 2000 program. Ultimate goal of FTS 2001 is to save taxpayers money on govt. telecom services, not provide corporate welfare to carriers, she said. Current FTS 2001 contract also doesn’t include many data services such as Web hosting and DSL that can be sold to federal agencies, Crawford said: "There’s a huge amount of opportunity out there to add services and features that the government can make use of but isn’t."– Doug Abrahms