The General Services Administration (GSA) is looking for input to help flesh out the agency’s Next Generation Network Infrastructure (NGNI) strategy that may succeed GSA’s existing Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contracts that guide how Federal agencies buy communications and related services.
Federal agencies have been migrating to the EIS contract – a successor to the older Networx and regional and local service contracts for government telecommunications and infrastructure solutions – for several years, although that transition is far from complete.
Last August, for example, GSA granted two-year deadline extensions to eight agencies to transition to EIS contracts, and after granting similar extensions to the departments of Justice and Homeland Security in late 2022. In a blog post, GSA said that as of April 2023, 123 of 222 agencies had successfully transitioned off of the legacy telecommunications contracts – leaving several dozen that had yet to do so.
In a request for information (RFI) dated Feb. 15 and posted on SAM.gov, GSA said the RFI aims to gather market research and planning information for “informational purposes only,” and that the current process does not seek proposals.
“The General Services Administration (GSA) is issuing this RFI to seek potential sources to gather information from industry on the Telecommunications/Information Technology (IT) market and for future planning purposes,” the agency said.
“GSA is in the planning phase to determine the Next Generation Network Infrastructure (NGNI) strategy and GSA’s next acquisition initiative to meet future federal telecommunications and information technology requirements before the EIS contracts expire in July 2032,” the agency said.
“Understanding the current and future telecommunications/information technology market trends is key to identifying the next generation of telecommunications/information technology and infrastructure capabilities as part of the NGNI strategy,” GSA said.
Responses to the RFI are due by March 15.