Army names six vendors for satellite contract

The Army has awarded its five-year, $5 billion Worldwide Satellite Systems contract to six vendors.

The award winners include two large businesses—Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp.—and four small businesses: DataPath of Duluth, Ga.; D&SCI of Eatontown, N.J.; Globecomm Systems of Hauppauge, N.Y.; and TeleCommunications Systems of Annapolis, Md.

Under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, each vendor is required to bring turnkey commercial satellite systems and associated support services for satellite terminals, including all hardware, software, services and data to operate the terminals.

Both Defense and non-DOD agencies can order from the contract. Army officials say WWSS products and services will support all federal communications missions, including disaster relief and homeland security initiatives.

Kevin Carroll, the Army’s program executive officer for enterprise information systems, said customers don’t have to have a background in satellite communications or be acquisition experts to reap the benefits of the contract vehicle.

“We’ve already come across potential WWSS customers who don’t have the technical expertise or the acquisition expertise, so we’ll assist them,” said Scott A. Mathews, a WWSS project leader, in a news release. “We’ve developed a streamlined delivery order process … to help customers convert their validated requirements into a request for a task execution plan, which the contracting officer will forward to each of the six vendors.”

The contract was developed under a joint partnership of Project Manager, Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems and the Project Manager, Warfighter Information Network-Tactical.

IDIQ = Contractor license to steal

2 posted on 09/07/2006 4:45:10 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter ( I am sitting under my cone of silence, inside a copper wire cage wearing a tin foil hat...)

In the late 90's the company I worked for was called in to do IV&V on an IDIQ contract for HHS. It originally was for $5M, but by the time they called us in (and we weren't cheap, either), costs had balooned to $25M, and their contractor still hadn't produced a single line of executable code.

3 posted on 09/07/2006 5:05:39 AM PDT by COBOL2Java (Freedom isn't free, but the men and women of the military will pay most of your share)

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