Alaska Communications Systems has entered into a six-year contractual agreement with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA (News - Alert)), to provide all voice and data services to federal agencies throughout Alaska.

This is the third GSA contract awarded to ACS in the last three years.

“We are excited that ACS (News - Alert) has the opportunity to expand on the twenty-year relationship with GSA, and to serve the federal agencies that do business in Alaska,” Sheldon Fisher, senior vice president of sales and service said.

“We look forward to continuing to work together to provide integrated telecommunications services to the many federal employees statewide."

Headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, ACS provides broadband and other wireline and wireless solutions to Enterprise, Carrier and mass market customers.

The ACS wireline operations include the state’s most advanced data networks and, to be launched in early 2009, the only diverse undersea fiber optic system connecting Alaska to the contiguous United States.

The ACS wireless operations include the only statewide 3G CDMA network, reaching across Alaska from the North Slope to Ketchikan, with coverage extended via best-in-class CDMA carriers in the Lower 49 and Canada.

ACS as per the contract would provide all voice services, local private lines, Metro Ethernet and a variety of Internet solutions -- supporting 200 federal agency offices across Alaska.

This follows another multi-year contract awarded to ACS in 2005 for GSA local phone service in Anchorage and Juneau, modified later to include Kodiak, and an additional contract granted in October 2007, allowing ACS to provide wireless phone service to federal agencies statewide.

GSA is a federal procurement and property management agency created to improve government efficiency and help federal agencies better serve the public. Across the nation, 13,000 associates provide services and solutions for the workplace operations of more than one million federal workers located in government-owned and leased buildings in more than 2,000 U.S. communities and overseas.

Anil Sharma is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.