Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has been chosen by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) to offer services designed to enable digital initiatives for state and local government agencies as part of the state's $150 million network and communications contract.
Known as VITAnet, the multiple-award competitive contract has a five-year base term and five one-year options under which Verizon can compete to provide services to a number of Virginia's government agencies.
Virginia's state and local government agencies, public and private colleges and universities, and public safety organizations will be able to purchase services offered via the VITAnet contract.
Verizon will offer public sector agencies a number of network-based solutions through VITAnet, including the telco's networking services such as Ethernet, managed services, unified communications and collaboration solutions, IP-based voice services and customer premises equipment (CPE).
VITAnet also gives government customers the option to purchase new services that become available, allowing those customers to leverage new capabilities that will be created via the telco's ongoing adoption of SDN and NFV.
Among the many capabilities that Verizon has started to offer by integrating SDN into its network is its recently announced SD-WAN service. SD-WAN allows business customers that want hybrid solutions to access their applications from either the cloud or on-premise, from any device or desktop, while better managing the ever-increasing volume of data.
A growing number of state and local government agencies are using networking services to power their digital initiatives. According to a Verizon report on digital transformation, 85 percent of IT leaders cited network connectivity as being critical to achieving business and operational goals.
Virginia is one of Verizon's key operating areas. The telco has invested $1 billion in its networks, plant and equipment across the state.
This win with Virginia comes at a time when Verizon's enterprise revenues have suffered due to what CFO Fran Shammo says are "secular and economic challenges." During the fourth quarter of 2015, the service provider reported that Global Enterprise sales declined 3.3 percent year-over-year to $3.2 billion.
For more:
- see the release
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