DHS awards OneNet telecommunications deal

WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- The U.S. Homeland Security Department has contracted Verizon and AT&T for network consolidation and to establish an intranet for sensitive information.

Under the DHS OneNet telecommunications deal, Verizon was awarded the primary contract for work on the DHS East and West regions and AT&T will focus on regional service centers as part of a secondary award. The total value of the contracts, awarded under the U.S. General Services Administration's Networx program, is worth up to $1 billion, NextGov.com reported.

Officials say the OneNet telecommunications initiative is an effort to establish a DHS intranet network for transmission of sensitive but unclassified information. Verizon and AT&T will also work to consolidate seven legacy networks, or networks that aren't based on the standard Internet Protocol.

"It's a huge contract, including not only the basic IP infrastructure and wide-area network, but also service-level agreements that go above and beyond the standard, and options for emergency communication (capabilities) anywhere in the world in 48 hours," Warren Suss, a federal telecommunications analyst and founder of Suss Consulting, said in a statement reported by NextGov.com.