GSA Networx Contracts: Expiration, Transition, and What’s Next

The GSA Networx contracts are two government-wide telecommunications vehicles — Networx Universal and Networx Enterprise — that the General Services Administration awarded in 2007 to supply federal agencies with voice, data, wireless, satellite, and managed network services. Together they carried a combined ceiling of $68.2 billion, served more than 130 agencies across 191 countries at their peak, and moved roughly $2 billion in federal spending each year. Both contracts are scheduled to expire on May 31, 2026, as agencies finish migrating to the successor Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract.¹

What Networx Is

Networx replaced the older FTS 2001 program and was structured as two parallel contract vehicles with different scopes.

Networx Universal was awarded on March 29, 2007, to AT&T Government Solutions, Verizon Business Services, and Qwest Government Services. It carried a $48.1 billion ceiling and required winners to deliver 36 mandatory services and 12 optional ones to 135 federal agencies in 191 countries. Universal was the only vehicle to include mobile and fixed satellite services, and it had the broadest geographic reach of any GSA telecom contract.²³

Networx Enterprise followed on May 31, 2007, and went to five carriers: AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Sprint, and Level 3 Communications. Its ceiling was $20.1 billion. Enterprise covered a smaller geographic footprint with fewer requirements, guaranteed a minimum of $50 million in revenue split equally among the five vendors, and left additional work to be competed at the agency level.⁴

Both contracts were built on a four-year base period with three two-year option periods.⁵

Services Agencies Bought Through Networx

The contract catalog was broad on purpose. Networx ran on an IP and MPLS backbone compliant with IPv6, but the vehicles still accommodated older voice and data circuits so agencies could migrate at their own pace. The main service categories:

Voice, data, IP transport, broadband, and MPLS networking, domestic and international.
Mobile services and fixed and mobile satellite communications (Universal only).
Managed network services, including design, 24/7 monitoring, troubleshooting, security, and agency-specific network operations centers.
Dedicated hosting with racks, power, storage, and database management.
Custom engineering, technology evaluation, simulation, and testing.

GSA added capabilities over time through contract modifications, including unified communications, telepresence, and Managed Trusted IP Services.⁶ In fiscal year 2015, agencies bought $1.62 billion in services through the program, which GSA said saved an estimated $670 million against best commercial pricing.⁷

Who the Vendors Are Today

The set of companies that won Networx in 2007 does not match the set holding it now. CenturyLink acquired Qwest in April 2011 and took over Qwest’s Universal and Enterprise contracts.⁸ CenturyLink then acquired Level 3 in 2017 and rebranded the combined company as Lumen Technologies in 2020. What started as three Universal vendors and five Enterprise vendors effectively collapsed into three corporate entities. GAO noted that the consolidation had undermined the original two-vehicle competitive strategy.³

As of the final extension, the remaining Networx holders are AT&T, Verizon, Lumen, and Level 3, the latter still listed separately under its own contract number.¹

The May 31, 2026 Expiration and Why It Slipped

Networx was originally expected to wind down around 2020. It has not. GSA first extended the contracts to May 2023 and then established a Continuity of Service period for agencies that signed memorandums of understanding committing them to a transition timeline. By September 2022, 112 of the 114 agencies with active Networx services had signed MOUs.⁹ Agencies without signed MOUs faced disconnection between November 2022 and May 2023.

Two departments needed more time than that. In late 2022, GSA granted the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security an extended deadline of May 31, 2026, citing global supply chain disruptions and pandemic-related challenges. Justice had disconnected 72 percent of its Networx services at that point, and Homeland Security was at 55 percent with EIS task orders still to award.¹⁰ GSA estimated that more than 60 legacy contracts would need sole-source modifications to cover the extended timeline. It also warned that individual contractors were under no obligation to accept the extensions and could refuse to continue providing services.¹¹

As of February 2025, all remaining Networx contracts were formally extended through May 31, 2026, described by GSA as the final expiration. The companion WITS 3 contracts expire slightly earlier, on February 28, 2026.¹

The delays were not a surprise to federal auditors. GAO had warned that the transition off Networx risked repeating the pattern of the FTS 2001-to-Networx move, which cost an estimated $395 million more than planned and ran 33 months long.¹⁰ GSA had set a phased schedule requiring task orders under the successor contract by September 2019 and full inventory migration by September 2022. By October 2019, 11 of 19 agencies GAO surveyed did not expect to meet the 2022 deadline, and only one had issued all its required task orders on time.¹²

Where the Transition Stands Now

As of March 31, 2026, GSA reported that 203 agencies had completed their transition to EIS: seven large, 24 medium, and 172 small. Completion means every legacy service record is disconnected and business volume reduction has reached 100 percent.¹³ Several GAO recommendations to agencies including Commerce and Veterans Affairs remain open, primarily on inventory documentation and identifying transition funding.¹²

What Comes After Networx

The successor is Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions, a $50 billion, 15-year contract that GSA awarded in August 2017 to ten primes: the four Networx incumbents (AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, and Level 3) plus BT Federal, Core Technologies, Granite Telecommunications, Harris Corp., MetTel, and MicroTech.¹⁴ EIS was designed to move agencies toward modern architectures such as Zero Trust, SD-WAN, and cloud-based networking, not just to replicate Networx services.¹⁵

EIS also absorbed two other legacy contract families that ran alongside Networx: the Washington Interagency Telecommunications System 3 (WITS 3), which covered local telecom in the D.C. metro area, and a set of regional Local Telecommunications agreements. Together, those legacy contracts represented about $2.5 billion a year in federal spending, with Networx accounting for roughly $2 billion of that total.¹⁶

The EIS ordering period runs through 2032. GSA has estimated that agencies moving from Networx to EIS could save 15 to 25 percent on telecommunications spending, though whether those savings hold up after nearly a decade of extensions and transition costs remains an open question for congressional overseers and agency budget offices.¹⁶

1
GSA. Legacy IT Contracts
2
GovExec. GSA Awards Three Companies Networx Telecom Contracts
3
U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO-14-63 – Networx Contract Analysis
4
Light Reading. 5 Carriers Win Networx Enterprise Contracts
5
GSA Office of Inspector General. Audit of GSA’s Transition From FTS2001 to Networx
6
AT&T. Networx: Not Your Average Telecom Contract
7
GSA Blog. GSA Technology Blog – Networx
8
Washington Technology. Qwest, CenturyLink Finalize Merger, Become Fourth-Largest Carrier
9
FedScoop. GSA Working to Grant EIS Transition Extension for Justice and Homeland Security
10
Federal News Network. GSA Giving Two Agencies Two Extra Years to Transition to New Telecommunications Contract
11
GSA Blog. GSA Plans to Grant DOJ, DHS Extended Period to Complete EIS Transition
12
U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO-20-155 – Telecommunications: Agencies Need to Improve Transition Planning
13
GSA. EIS Transition
14
Nextgov. GSA Names 10 Primes for $50B EIS Contract
15
GSA. Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions
16
Congressional Research Service. Federal Telecommunications Modernization: Transitioning From Networx to EIS