COMSATCOM Alliance
Written by Harrison Donnelly
MIT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 9 (October)
In The Marketplace To Get Newer, More Advanced
Satellite Technologies Into The Field Faster.
The first formal definitions and requirements of the initiative, which is expected to acquire up to $5 billion in satellite communications capacity and services over a decade, are scheduled for release in draft form before the end of the year, and designers hope to have the new system in place by fiscal year 2011.
Unveiled to industry and the press this summer, FCSA will replace three existing DISA and GSA programs with buying vehicles available to both military and other government users. The three components of FCSA will be dedicated transponder capacity; subscription services; and end-to-end solutions. (See MIT, August 2009, page 4.)
Given the vastly increased use of commercial satellite resources by the military in recent years, the DISA/GSA alliance is vital to continued effective support for warfighters, according to Bruce T. Bennett, DISA’s director of satellite communications, teleport and services.
“It became apparent to us that we could not do this alone. So we have decided to partner with GSA to provide one vehicle for all of DoD and the federal government, to unify our buying power and our leverage in the marketplace to get newer, more advanced technologies into the field faster,” Bennett said, noting that DISA will continue to oversee and assist all the DoD users, while GSA will provide mentoring and engineering oversight for other federal users.
“We’ll help each other out as time goes by, when either of us is overwhelmed,” he said. “We’re trying to make this so that as new services become available, we can leverage them quickly and economically and get them out there to manage our worldwide missions.”
For Kevin Gallo, GSA program manager, the SATCOM initiative is important not only for the critical services it will provide for warfighters, first responders and other government users, but also for the agency partnership it represents.
“It’s a great example of different government agencies working together to operate efficiently,” said Gallo. “We’re working side by side with DISA to pool our SATCOM acquisition expertise, avoiding the cost of parallel acquisition efforts. We’re working in the same office, and have briefed industry jointly, and we’re planning for the partnership to continue on through acquisition and then into operations.”
UNIFYING FORCES
In addition to the benefits for government users, Bennett suggested, FCSA will assist industry participants as well. “One of the things that we were continually being questioned about by contractors and Congress was the myriad different processes that vendors had to go through in order to be able to sell their services to DoD or other federal agencies. By unifying our forces, there will be one process and one methodology, so we’re hoping it will eliminate a significant amount of cost and confusion that we were burdening our commercial brethren with.”
The new vehicles will build on the agencies’ experiences with existing commercial satellite programs, notably DISA’s Defense Information Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services-Global (DSTS-G), which has been in place since 2001.
Since then, the dramatic growth in military use of commercial satellites has reshaped the marketplace, Bennett observed. “Originally, it was a small business set-aside for three small vendors to help us navigate the commercial market space. We’ve now gotten smarter, and industry has gotten smarter, so we’ve taken some of the good ideas out of the original DISA and GSA contracts, did an exhaustive conversation with industry, and have identified three unique segments out there. We’re attacking each individually to maximize their potential for DoD and the federal government.
“There wasn’t anything we didn’t like about the current process, but it was put in place years ago. What we’ve learned and gotten better at, we have rolled into this contract to make it open to any vendor out there to be able to provide their services to DoD and the federal government,” he added.
While demand may level out in the future, technological change will continue to require a flexible approach, Bennett said. “I don’t see the kind of growth in the future that we’ve had in the last 10 years, but I don’t see it diminishing either. As we start moving to a network-centric environment, the amount of information is causing our warfighters to demand more and more bandwidth in order to do their mission effectively. Unfortunately, a lot of the places we deploy to don’t have viable terrestrial infrastructures, which requires them to get their connectivity through satellites. That demand will continue to stay high, but I don’t see it growing at quite the same rate that it is today.
“The other big thing is the amount of new technology and services that they are bringing to the table, which allows us a lot more flexibility to meet customer requirements anywhere in the world. We took a look at past and future information needs and talked to almost everyone in the industry to get an idea of where they are heading and what kinds of services they expect to bring out in the foreseeable future, and at how we can best apply that to the unfulfilled requirements that we have now in DoD. We spent a lot of time with industry people, working and talking with them, picking their brains and letting them know what our needs were and trying to match them up,” Bennett recalled.
EASY AND ECONOMICAL
By aggregating demand from a wide range of government agencies, FCSA is expected to produce significant economies of scale and cost savings, while also simplifying administration for both users and suppliers.
“It should be easier for users to order services and identify how to fill requirements,” said Bennett. “It should also be more economical for the user, and allow a lot more flexibility and portability of bandwidth.”
The end of the DSTS-G program will change the status of the three prime contractors— Artel, DRS Technologies and CapRock Government Solutions—which will no longer be in charge of integrating and reselling satellite products and services from other companies. But Bennett predicted the companies would respond to the new environment.
“FCSA has room for everyone,” he said. “It shouldn’t drastically affect the three companies in the current program. They can bid and be members on the contracts. But what it does do is cut some of the middlemen out, especially from the transponded services. It gives us some flexibility and enables more than just three companies to help us out in developing our future capabilities.
“Everyone can play, and there’s room for all. All this does is to eliminate the artificial barriers we put up in the early part of this decade,” Bennett said.
Another advantage is that industry will be able to continually offer new competition and services, according to Charles F. Edwards, DISA deputy program manager, SATCOM. “There are some new or prospective startups in the commercial satellite industry, and if they develop their business offerings after these awards, including transponded capacity or subscription services, they will be able to come forward as a supplier. In these two service areas, we’re going to have continuous competition, which is of value both to the government and industry.”
Security could also be an area of mutual advantage, backers say. “DoD has always been out ahead on satellites, especially on information security, that our commercial brethren haven’t paid a lot of attention to. But they’re beginning to, because the kinds of information security requirements DoD has also apply to the banking and health communities, for example. So they’re beginning to offer services that are a lot closer to the native needs of DoD, and we’re encouraging that kind of growth so that we can leverage from them without having to develop specialized services,” Bennett said.
“We’re also following closely on their next generation satellites,” he said. “Five years ago, you might not have imagined putting a dish at your house and getting Internet to your home through a satellite. But you can get that today. What I tell people is that what they saw in the early 1990s with the growth of the computer industry, you’re seeing in this decade in the satellite community, and we’re just taking advantage of that.”
Meanwhile, officials continue to work hard to communicate with industry and customers on the new program, both to get feedback and to make sure that all potential competitors understand the opportunities and how to participate.
“We are still listening to industry as we move forward, and our communications are to help us get it right,” said Edwards. “We’re a buyer in a commercial market, and we want to make sure we’re asking them to supply things in the right way. We had the Industry Day this summer, and this fall we’ll have another meeting where we’ll talk about the language on transponded capacity and subscription services, and ask them to give us some feedback. We’re going to use draft documents to communicate with industry to make sure we get it right.“
“We’re really taking seriously the need to get information out to our customers and commercial partners, to make sure that we work out all the issues and lines of communications prior to the contracts being in place,” Bennett said. ♦
