How MetTel’s VA win could open the door to more managed services

MetTel’s capture of a $54 million Veterans Affairs contract more than just a telecommunications modernization project.

In another sense, it represents a growing opportunity the company sees as helping it add more managed services work to its portfolio.

The contract went through a series of bid protests before MetTel finally prevailed.

At its core, the VA contract is what is known as a POTS modernization contract. In this context, POTS stands for “plain old telephone service.”

Many voice lines have long converted to Internet Protocol-based networks over the years. But copper lines are still heavily used for fire alarms, elevators and fax lines.

Those copper lines are very expensive to maintain and to replace, said Erika Dinnie, MetTel's vice president of federal strategy and planning.

The VA contract addresses what Dinnie described as an under-the-radar crisis facing federal agencies. Traditional copper telephone lines are seeing dramatic price increases as telecommunications carriers try to exit the legacy business.

Dinnie, a former General Services Administration executive, shared one anecdote of a customer who told her the agency was receiving almost weekly notification of rate increases.

Those spiraling costs led MetTel to develop what it calls "POTS in a box," an endpoint device that converts analog signals to IP-based digital signals. MetTel designed the device to help customers keep existing equipment, while sending the converted digital signals over the company's managed network.

"We leaned into an area where a lot of telecom providers didn't want to get into POTS transformation," Dinnie said. "We created a partnership, sought out what we thought was the best hardware, and I think we built a competitive edge around that."

MetTel's formed a strategic partnership with Data Remote to develop the endpoint device.

“This was not one and one,” Dinnie said. “We are constantly looking at the service and we probably talk weekly on what we need to do to increase connectivity and reliability.”

POTS in a box also is a gateway of sorts into where MetTel sees opportunity. The company will offer a managed service to customers that consolidates all of their utilities into a single dashboard, Dinnie said.

Large geographically-dispersed agencies might have a few thousand utility providers, which means the agency gets a few thousand bills.

“We have one particular agency with over 1,500 locations. We’ve aggregated their telecom and their utilities,” she said.

By artificial intelligence, MetTel aggregated 5,000 monthly bills into single bill. The agency went from having 24 people manage telecom and utility billing to single point of contact.

“Using AI features, we can identify abnormalities in those bills. Erroneous information or duplication and that’s done in minutes,” Dinnie said. “Our point of contact will bet a flag that says, here are abnormalities you need to look at.”

The company sought align with the Trump administration and its focus on making sure every dollar focuses on the mission of the agency.

“We are able to free you and your staff up to focus on the agency mission and leave the backend administration functions to us,” Dinnie said.

MetTel currently provides the service to two agencies, she said. But the company is initiating conversations with GSA to create an enterprise agreement under the OneGov procurement initiative, which would open the managed services offering to all agencies.

Agencies have little data on utility spending and "can’t find a number,” Dinnie said.

MetTel has some good data from its customers, she said, but added no one has anything that is government-wide.

“Imagine if the federal government had that data at their fingertips for every agency and the ability to eliminate duplication and drive down costs by being a large buyer,” Dinnie said. “That would be pretty incredible.”