Lightower wins seat on GSA schedule 070 contract, enhances reach into government vertical

Lightower Fiber Networks has won a seat on the General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) 070 contract, enhancing its profile with federal government agencies looking for alternative fiber network sources.

Through this long-term IT contract, Lightower joins a pre-approved list of technology companies for federal purchases, simplifying the procurement process and further ensuring government agencies can receive network services.

Under the terms of the contract agreement, Lightower can now work directly with government agencies and engineer network and disaster recovery products with services such as dark fiber, Ethernet, wavelengths, and internet access. The company is also able to provide all-fiber connectivity to over 250 data center as well as to major cloud providers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Office 365, through Lightower Cloud Connect products.

One of the key elements that makes Lightower an attractive partner to public sector agencies is its growing fiber network. By purchasing FiberTech in 2015, Lightower expanded its network to 30,000 route miles of fiber that are within reach of several public sector agency buildings in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions of the United States.

Besides its growing base of fiber assets, what also makes Lightower a potentially good partner for public sector agencies is that its fiber transport services support the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), a government-wide program that standardizes security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.

Additionally, Lightower can support efforts by the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), which aims to reduce IT costs, increase efficiencies and leverage the latest in technology.

Schedule 70 is just one of several government contract vehicles where Lightower has been gaining a presence. Previously, Lightower became an authorized vendor for the Commonwealth of Virginia for data networking services. The service provider completed the build out of its fiber network in Virginia in November 2014. 

For more:
- see the release

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