GSA May have to Start Over on Governmentwide Cellphone Plan

A decision posted by the Office of the Comptroller General could complicate the government’s goal of saving billions of dollars by consolidating contracts for mobile phone services.

The General Services Administration failed to prove that several vendor requirements it included in its Wireless Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative were standard fare in commercial contracts, the Government Accountability Office said. Those included requirements to allow agencies to pool cellphone minutes to avoid overage charges and to turn off international roaming charges for federal customers working near the Mexican and Canadian borders. The decision is not binding for GSA, which could choose to move forward with its solicitation as written. The decision followed a protest from wireless provider Verizon. In addition to its pooling and roaming complaints, Verizon said GSA went outside common commercial practices with two other provisions. One of those provisions required vendors that offer one government customer a discount price of 10 percent or more below the blanket purchase agreement to match that price for other government customers. The other provision required vendors to match the blanket purchase agreement price for any customer that is eligible to purchase wireless services under the agreement but had purchased those services in some other way.