The agency began assisting federal agencies with transition plans ahead of the EIS award last summer in hopes of avoiding the lengthy and costly process it faced when transitioning to the last big telecommunications contract, Networx. GSA set 2020 as the deadline for agencies to move over to EIS as old telecommunications contracts, such as Networx, Local Telecommunications Services and Washington Interagency Telecommunications System 3 expire. 'We believe GSA should remove the artificial deadline' for the EIS transition, he said. Instead of having 36 months to make the transition, agencies really only have 18 now, David Young, regional vice president of strategic government at CenturyLink told FCW in a recent interview. The three-year transition period GSA planned for agencies to move from its old Networx contract to EIS has been eaten up by contract award timing and a scarcity of live agency task orders, some contractors said.

Some of the contractors for the General Services Administration's $50 billion, 15-year next-generation Enterprise Infrastructure Services telecommunications services contract are concerned time is growing short for federal agencies to make the shift to the new contract.

NOTE: This article first appeared on FCW.com

Networx contract eis