{"id":1804,"date":"2016-01-14T08:25:22","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T13:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"\/technology\/?p=1804"},"modified":"2024-01-11T18:19:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T23:19:51","slug":"total-cost-savings-key-in-federal-network-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/2016\/01\/14\/total-cost-savings-key-in-federal-network-connections\/","title":{"rendered":"Total Cost Savings Key in Federal Network Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(This blog post is part of a multi-week series reviewing data and trends from GSA\u2019s IT acquisition vehicles for FY15. Read previous posts at <\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">http:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Improving and maintaining reliable and flexible basic connectivity continues to be important for government, including a focus on total cost of ownership savings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gsa.gov\/connectionsii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connections II<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the GSA contract agencies use to purchase network integration support and communications equipment to ensure connectivity from the user to the network provider.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>FY15 Customer Buying Trends<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Federal agencies obligated $172 million to Connections II network integration and support services via 292 task orders in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While building and campus connectivity remain the primary purpose of the Connections program, as technology continues to evolve we see a shift in what agencies are ordering. For example, traditional building and campus wiring and cabling projects are now becoming wireless.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agencies are looking to Connections to support engineering, installation, testing, project management, and life-cycle management of Digital Antenna Systems, Wi-Fi, and other wireless technology that become the user interface to the broader networks of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gsa.gov\/connectionsii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connections II<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> purchase data tells us that agencies need continued support and resources in this area. Five service types available from Connections II make up almost 80% of demand. Demand for telecommunications, network upgrades, and general network support were higher priority in FY15 than the year before.<\/span><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><b>Technology Solution<\/b><\/td>\n<td><b> Percentage of Total<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Telecom Upgrades<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">20%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">General Support<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">18%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Voice Operations and Billing Consolidation<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">15.6%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unified Communications Expansion<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">13%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Network Cabling<\/span><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10.5%<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connections II contractors offer strong integration skills, which are important during long upgrades or transition, to watch for technology changes and incorporate them into the final result.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Focus on Total Cost of Ownership Savings <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connections II customers are focusing on solutions that save dollars at both contract award and on long-term operational costs (total cost of ownership). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One agency awarded a large task order in FY15 that achieved more than 10% in labor savings and 40% in equipment savings over listed prices. Other agencies are anticipating more downstream savings as a result of consolidation and modernization. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agencies are able to save millions with more efficient telecom operations and billing management over several years. They also reduce cost of operations and security, and increase network efficiency by modernizing technology such as nationwide Unified Communications Convergence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Orders Increasing Year to Year<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Demand for solutions from Connections II is growing every year. FY15 obligations represent an increase of 31% in obligations from FY14, and 60% in obligations from FY13. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to Unified Communications, we see interest growing for Radio Access Networks (RAN), Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), and Land Mobile Radio (LMR). This is no surprise with the growth in mobile, since these technologies broaden the area signals can be received by mobile devices. They also assist with emergency preparedness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Please follow us on Twitter <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/GSA_ITS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">@GSA_ITS<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to join the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(This blog post is part of a multi-week series reviewing data and trends from GSA\u2019s IT acquisition vehicles for FY15. Read previous posts at http:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/) Improving and maintaining reliable and flexible basic connectivity continues to be important for government, including a focus on total cost of ownership savings. Connections II is the GSA contract agencies &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/2016\/01\/14\/total-cost-savings-key-in-federal-network-connections\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Total Cost Savings Key in Federal Network Connections&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19185,4486],"tags":[3497,3507,4502,3498],"class_list":["post-1804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-hardware","category-telecommunications","tag-acquisition-excellence","tag-connections-ii","tag-saving-money","tag-customer-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1804"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3400,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1804\/revisions\/3400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsablogs.gsa.gov\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}