Beyond FTS2000: A Program for Change Appendix A -- FTS2000 Case Study (1989) / Chapter Skim
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6 The Long Hot Summer and Cold Hard Winter of 1987
6 The Long Hot Summer and Cold Hard Winter of 1987
Pages 36-51
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From page 36... ...
As with the tactics of proper battles, these paper battles had diversions to hide real purposes, and exercises to keep GSA busy on one front while a second front was opened. Instead of rocketry and shells, the ordnance would prove to be a barrage of adverse press articles, a rain of aggressive letters from Congress, and the massive explosion of a descending report from GAO, the congressional General Accounting Office.
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From page 37... ...
, chairman of House Civil Rights Subcommittee, announced, "The concept they have in mind is frightening and really unacceptable." Meanwhile, union officials at major federal employees unions also expressed concern about possible abuse. "We could have a system where Big Brother is going to move in." Each article coincidently gave Golden bad publicity (Note 1~.
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From page 38... ...
First of all, 90 percent of AT&T's business service revenue, and nearly all of its profit from providing services to businesses, flow from less than 10 percent of the business customer base. Within this 10 percent, there is even more concentration, and in fact fewer than 300 giant customers generate fully 25 percent of AT&T's business revenues (Note 3~.
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From page 39... ...
First, AT&T began to refine the terms and conditions in the RFP to ensure they could compete; second they began to attack the strategy of Martin-Marietta and-their Bell subcontractors; and third, Rep. Jack Brooks, the chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, began to take a hand.
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From page 40... ...
Interpretation was proceeding slowly on a case-by-case basis and GSA had expected that FTS2000 might test the bounds of the MFJ and require interaction with the FCC or Judge Greene's court. Following divestiture, AT&T had moved closer and closer toward fixed price commitments.
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From page 41... ...
GSA's attention was certainly caught and the message was unambiguous as the Washington Times headline, "Brooks Blasts GSA Over Phone Purchase" arrived ahead of GSA's copy of the letter (Note 16~. Brooks' letter stated, "GAO concludes that projects designed to provide centrally managed telecommunications services, such as FTS2000, WITS, and ASP, are not supported by adequate analysis and, as a result, their successful implementation is highly questionable." The letter went on to state, "it has recently come to my attention that AT&T, one of the major vendors interested in bidding on the FTS2000 contract,-has filed a bid protest against the procurement.
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From page 42... ...
If FCC declared in GSA's favor, then AT&T would submit an orthodox fixed price bid (Note lay. GSA announced new submission dates of July 30 and then later August 30 to allow resolution of this and other miscellaneous items.
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From page 43... ...
West from providing''the less costly switching arrangements in that case, but rightly termed it a very difficult issue (Note 20~. ~ Following a letter to Justice on July 17, 1987, AT&T filed a motion with the federal district court of Judge Greene asking for an emergency order barring the BOCs from providing certain switching services to FTS2000.
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From page 44... ...
He did not, however, rule whether the BOCs would violate the consent decree by providing switching services generally (Note 26~. ROUND THREE: GSA FIGHTS BROOKS The activities previously described, while bringing discomfort and disorder and delaying the submission date, had no serious impact on GSA or the FTS2000 strategy as originally developed.
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From page 45... ...
It gave GSA central authority for ADP and in many ways out of that Act came the view that GSA was Brooks's agency and information technology was his territory. He was joint architect of another important piece of legislation concerning information technology, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, and was the prime mover behind the Competition in Contracting Act of 1985, which mandated full and open competition (Note 27~.
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From page 46... ...
'The letter went on to say that there were two remaining issues that had not been resolved:- the first was that Golden should become the source selecting official for the award of the contract; the second, and more troublesome, that the single vendor approach would not only concentrate enormous economic power in one company but would effectively lock the federal government into that one company's service for 10 years. In an attachment, the letter went on to say that this could reduce the number of competitors in the marketplace and arrest the growth of the entire industry.
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From page 47... ...
" There has been speculation about this including the idea that it was an ideological thrust by the free marketers in the White House (Note 30~. The fact was that-Golden simply believed that two awards was the wrong answer for the government and would result in more costs and a more difficult management situation.
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From page 48... ...
Meanwhile GSA was kept busy on all fronts: working with GAO concerning the damaging report it had issued to obtain a second version that said GSA should go ahead with FTS2000 (Note 36~; dealing with dozens of Congressional letters, meeting with Congressional staff, answering questions, and preparing documents (Note 37~; dealing with the emotional pressure of constant press criticism from the Washington Times, New York Times and the Cal l Street Journal (Note 38~; Martin-Marietta threatening to withdraw (Note 39~; and dealing with questions concerning the resurrected Kalba-Bowen report. All of these were calculated to wear GSA's soldiers out.
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From page 49... ...
THE COLD, HARD WINTER As mentioned earlier, in parallel with the FTS2000 project, GSA had been soliciting competition for a number of its high-cost switches in the old FTS to determine if Electronic Tandem Network (ETN) switching arrangements from the BOCs would be less expensive than AT&T's.
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From page 50... ...
"Rumor of private dinners, meetings and exchanges of sensitive bid information"; · "Bribery suspected in U.S. phone contracts'; · "In return for information GSA officials received cash, promises of future employment, and in one case cocaine"; · "High GSA official vows to use fifth amendment"; · ''Bell Atlantic, BellSouth admitted to getting secret bidding data"; · "AT&T also obtained confidential info"; and · "Grand jury to sift evidence of wrongdoing within GSA'l (Note 48~.
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From page 51... ...
51 To some extent, this effect spread throughout the Leleco _ ications co _ ity of the government. But with this last episodic the long' ho; summer and cold, hard winter were over.
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