Verizon Public Sector has secured a 15-year critical infrastructure contract with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) worth over USD 2 billion. Under the Federal Aviation Administration Enterprise Network Services (FENS) contract, Verizon will design, build, operate, and maintain the FAA's next-generation communications platform.
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Verizon to upgrade FAA's communication platform
The contract entails building a dynamic, highly available, and secure enterprise network to support all of the FAA's mission-critical applications across the National Airspace System (NAS). This includes providing air traffic management (ATM) to more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers travelling across the over 29 million square miles that make up the US national airspace system.
Verizon's network solution
Verizon's network solution is designed for the future, with new capabilities to meet the next generation of applications with greater bandwidth requirements. The communications infrastructure supports air and ground safety for passenger, freight, and selected Department of Defense flights via three separate networks, one for NAS, one for administrative, and one for research and development.
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New Enterprise Platform Features
The new enterprise platform managed by Verizon will provide the FAA with features such as dynamic service provisioning and reconfiguration, survivability, and on-demand Service Flow routing to deliver higher security, faster performance, and a flexible, more seamless user experience. Additionally, Verizon will provide extensive support services, including program management, network engineering, configuration management, test and evaluation (T&E), service ordering and provisioning, network and security management, and operations.
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The FENS contract is the successor to the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) contract, which provided consolidated telecom services for the 5,000 facilities and 30,000 circuits in the NAS. By extension, FENS will serve as the primary means for FAA's telecommunications services and forms the basic infrastructure for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen.
The FAA's decision to award the contract to Verizon is a testament to the company's expertise in delivering secure, reliable, and innovative communication solutions. The transformation of the FAA's telecommunications infrastructure will enable the agency to meet the evolving needs of the NAS and support the future growth of the US aviation industry.
