Sacramento -- The California Department of General Services (DGS) announced today that final proposals have been submitted from three companies competing to win the state's telecommunications business.

 

AT&T, GTE, and Pacific Bell/MCI are bidding to become the single prime vendor to provide local switching, long distance, voice mail and data transmission services to state agencies. CALNET, the current state network operated by DGS, provides more than 300,000 dial tones to state office buildings, prisons, and hospitals statewide.

 

"The Department of General Services will now be evaluating the technical merit of these proposals to determine which will provide the best overall service to the state," said Wendell McCullough, Deputy Director of the department's Telecommunications Division. "It is anticipated that the privatization of CALNET will not eliminate any current civil service positions, but will allow employees to shift from a strictly operational role to more of a customer service and over-sight function."

 

The effort to privatize the state's telecommunications system is the result of Governor Wilson's competitive government initiative. The contract will be awarded under the new "alternative procurement" process which allows DGS to select the "best value" bid, as opposed to being limited only to the lowest bidder. It is expected that the telecommunications contract will be signed in July.

 

The sale of CALNET, the third largest telephone system in California, will eliminate $20 million in outstanding debt and save $10 million which would have been needed to move existing equipment.