FCC Taking Bids on $204 Million Software Development Contract

The Federal Communications Commission has opened the bidding process on a new five-year, $204 million contract for software development and program management. The agency plans to issue multiple awards, with at least 35% of total obligations set aside for small businesses, according to a request for proposal released on July 13.

The contract, known as Application Development Support Services, will assist the FCC in modifying and enhancing existing IT services, migrating systems to the cloud, and creating new services on modernized platforms, according to the RFP.

Potential offerors have until Aug. 14 to respond to the RFP.

The contract will support the development of a new enterprise architecture and application programming interfaces (APIs), reengineering of business processes , the continuous delivery of new software releases, as well as providing cybersecurity and data backup.

Contractors must use Agile software methodologies for all activities, specifically Extreme Programming, a variant of the Agile development methodology, as the preferred technique unless otherwise stated.

The $204 million ceiling value of Application Development Support Services could make it one of the FCC’s largest IT contracts to date. Since fiscal 2016, the FCC has obligated $369 million on IT contracts, primarily using Best in Class contracts such as Schedule 70 ($101 million), SEWP V ($50 million), and CIO-SP3 Small Business ($34 million). In addition, a contract known as Agile Development, Programming, and Operations & Maintenance generated $130 million for Computech Inc., a subsidiary of NCI, before it expired at the end of December 2019.

Since fiscal 2016, Incentive Technology Group LLC, a small-business subsidiary of ICF International, has led all FCC IT vendors with $61 million, followed by NCI ($51 million) and International Business Machines Corp. ($35 million). Small businesses have won $229 million, or more than 60% of total FCC IT obligations, over that same time span.

To contact the analyst: Chris Cornillie in Washington at ccornillie@bgov.com

To contact the editor responsible: Daniel Snyder at dsnyder@bgov.com