Telecommunications: GSA Should Assess Agencies’ Effectiveness at Preventing Service Disruptions

Filed 54m ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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Merry Go Slower - Distressed

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

GSA oversaw 221 agencies' transition from expired legacy telecom contracts to the replacement Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract, a switch delayed more than three years past the September 2022 deadline. Six agencies GAO reviewed — Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior and Transportation — saw a combined 206% price increase on their largest legacy contracts between February and March 2025 alone, as vendors capitalized on the extended service periods and phased-out legacy technology.

The six agencies cited 21 delay factors, most commonly EIS vendor performance issues, pandemic-era supply chain problems, and legacy connection snags, but only three of the six actually mitigated more than half of their own identified risks. GSA does not know whether any agency experienced an actual service disruption, because it isn't notified when a replacement service goes live before the old one is switched off.

GAO recommended GSA determine whether disruptions occurred and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation efforts; GSA agreed and says it's drafting a plan.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

An agency that spent three-plus years and a 206% price surge managing a contract handoff might reasonably be expected to know whether the lights stayed on afterward. Instead GSA extended deadlines, absorbed the price hikes, and is only now getting around to asking whether any of it actually worked — the bureaucratic equivalent of finishing the marathon and then wondering if you ran the right course.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Merry Go Slower - Distressed · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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