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VITAnet

Overview

VITAnet consists of two telecommunications contracts that offer a large portfolio of leading edge services throughout Virginia to eligible users located within the Commonwealth. Contracts were awarded to CenturyLink and Verizon, two of the industry's premier suppliers that each have a strong presence in Virginia, and are also considered a top-tier service providers to customers located all over the globe. 

VITA awarded two contracts as a means to foster a competitive environment between the suppliers that will encourage them to continually introduce new and innovative services at market-driven prices. Both suppliers offer a comprehensive suite of services that include: 

  • Wide area network (WAN) data communications services
  • High speed Tier 1 Internet access
  • Hosted and on-premises Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) services and systems
  • Traditional long distance and toll-free voice communication services  

For question or concerns, please contact: VITAnet@vita.virginia.gov.

Supplier Overview

From this procurement, VITA awarded contracts to two suppliers:

  • CenturyLink (re-branded to Lumen) - Lumen's platform provides business applications and data that integrate global network infrastructure, cloud connectivity, edge computing, connected security, voice, collaboration and enterprise-class services into an advanced application architecture. CenturyLink has re-branded to Lumen.

    CenturyLink contact:
    Bruce Doub 
    Sr. Account Manager, Government Services East 
    Tel.: 804-298-7172 
    Email: bruce.doub@lumen.com

    For further details, please visit the following site: https://www.centurylink.com/virginia.html

  • Verizon Business - the largest interexchange carrier (IXC) (i.e., long distance) in the country; a subsidiary under the same corporate umbrella as Verizon Virginia and Verizon South - the state’s two largest local exchange carriers (LEC); a Tier 1 Internet service provider with a nationwide and international presence.

    Verizon Business contact:
    Eric Adkins
    Sr. Client Partner, Verizon Enterprise Solutions – Virginia State Government 
    Office: 770-280-9188 
    Mobile: 804-514-1620 
    Fax: 301-966-1380 
    Email: eric.r.adkins@one.verizon.com

Contract Benefits

Awarding contracts to multiple suppliers provides benefits to the commonwealth, including:  

  • No term commitments: Services in both contracts are offered with no term commitments, enabling customers to install, increase, decrease, or remove services at any time with no risk of financial penalties.   

  • More network options: Provides you more options for meeting your network requirements (i.e., MPLS and Ethernet). 

  • Diverse and redundant networks: Enables you to build diverse and redundant networks with resiliency to remain operational should service interruptions occur in either of the two providers’ infrastructures. 

  • Competitive environment for suppliers: Introduces a competitive environment where the providers have to continually compete to obtain and retain your business based on price and performance. 

  • New services throughout contract lifecycle: Encourages providers to introduce new services at competitive prices and terms and conditions throughout the contracts’ lifecycle. 

  • No installation costs for initial transition: No installation costs to transition from COVANET to the new contracts. 

  • Expanded IP voice services: Provides expanded IP voice services making SIP trunking for customer premises based systems available in more areas of the state. 

  • Hosted Voice Over IP (VoIP) services: Ability to obtain hosted VoIP services to implement new converged voice communications systems with minimal hardware investments. 

  • Increased bandwidth and improved performance: Core networking technologies - Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay - have become obsolete and have been replaced with newer technologies that better satisfy increased bandwidth and capacity requirements. The replacement services include Ethernet and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). Both provide increased bandwidth and improved performance at lower costs than the services they replace. 

  • E-rate:  For Virginia’s eligible schools and libraries, VITA pre-filed the FCC-required Form 470 to relieve you from having to file your own.  

Contact us

For questions or assistance, please contact: VITAnet@vita.virginia.gov