Lumen wins $110 million contract to provide network services for defense department

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The company, which has provided 11,000 miles of fiber in support of the U.S. Department of Defense Information Network, will provide “mission-critical network services to the U.S. Department of Defense.”

Lumen Technologies has won a $110 million contract from the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) operate and maintain DISA’s fibre backbone.

The contract, which is the latest in a series won by Lumen, will see the company operating and maintaining colocation facilities, dark fibre, end-to-end network infrastructure, new fibre builds, and system updates “that use new technologies to improve network resilience, decrease latency and increase availability,” according to Lumen’s announcement about the contract.

The recent contract is an extension of an existing network services contract DISA previously awarded to Lumen, the company said.

Jason Schulman, Lumen national vice president, federal sales, said Lumen delivers always-on services that power the U.S. Department of Defense.

“DISA leverages the Lumen network’s strength, diversity and resiliency to achieve its mission of connecting and protecting America’s service men and women who help defend our nation,” he said.

The contract has a ceiling of approximately $110 million over a five-year period of performance until September 2028, according to Lumen’s Nov. 7 announcement.

Previously, Lumen won a $223 million contract with DISA, which was announced in Feb. 2023. In that contract, Lumen was selected to deliver voice communications services for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), according to Zain Ahmed, senior vice president, Lumen public sector, whose comments were included in a Feb. 2 announcement.

“DoD is modernising its network and leveraging cloud-based technologies like the new voice system enabled by Lumen that securely connects our troops with modern communications tools wherever they are,” he said at the time.

Other government contracts recently awarded to Lumen include a $1.5 billion contract from DISA to provide essential network transport and communications services in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Area of Responsibility and a $1.2 billion contract to deliver a fully integrated wide area data transport service with secure remote access, contact centre and cloud connectivity solutions to more than 9,500 USDA locations across the country, according to Lumen.

Before those contracts, both awarded in 2022, Lumen was awarded a $1.6 billion contract to provide secure network services and IT modernisation solutions to the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2020, according to information provided by the company.