Can You Hear Me Now? International Wireless Solutions for the DoD

Abstract

This topic has been directly requested for research by Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) Fleet Logistics Center (FLC) San Diego. The Navy and other Department of Defense (DOD) entities use a contracting vehicle called the Spiral 3 Multiple Award Contract (MAC) that provides cellular and other handheld wireless services to Navy commands within all 50 states. Broadly, the Spiral 3 contract is set up with three participating vendors: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. For any given Navy command, they each submit to their local NAVSUP FLC contracting officer a list of their cellular and wireless requirements. These requirements are then solicited to the Spiral 3 vendors. A task order against the Spiral 3 contract is then awarded to the vendor that came in with the lowest-priced, technically acceptable offer. This contract model has consistently been able to keep domestic cellular costs down from older contract vehicles. However, costs have remained high for international services, with frequent cost overruns occurring due to overages in international service by various Navy commands. Our research found that high international costs were due to a combination of suboptimal contract language and not fully utilizing vendor competition. Better defined contractual language and better utilizing existing vendor competition should lower international wireless costs.