AT&T announced today it will deliver modern networking capabilities and other advanced technologies to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under a Task Order from NOAA valued at $311 million over 10 years. The Task Order was made under the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program, which the government created to help federal agencies modernize their technology infrastructure.
NOAA wants to modernize and transform its networking technologies and lay the foundation for 5G and multi-access edge computing capabilities. Using EIS, NOAA is acquiring from AT&T networking infrastructure and advanced capabilities that can power its mission well into the next decade.
A key reason the agency needs the capabilities is the alarming rate at which weather events are impacting the U.S. The first 9 months of 2020 brought a record-tying 16 different billion-dollar disasters. NOAA is America’s environmental intelligence agency, responsible for daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring as well as fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce. Its products and services support economic vitality and affect more than 1/3 of America’s Gross Domestic Product.
Under this agreement, AT&T will transform NOAA’s current networking model, moving from a multiple vendor environment to a single, seamless next-generation communications platform. This consolidation of networks onto a single IP-based network can help reduce network outage risks and improve network and application availability. AT&T’s network modernization effort for NOAA is comprehensive. AT&T will modernize NOAA’s networking services across the breadth of its U.S. Territories and international operations including its headquarters and 6 line offices.
These include the National Weather Service (NWS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Ocean Service (NOS), Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), and Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO).
