The question has been answered at last, Which of these Companies will be Among Those Awarded Part or All of the GSA Networx Enterprise Contract? The answer is, all of them. On Thursday, May 31st GSA awarded AT&T, Level 3, Qwest, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon availability to bid for domestic contracts worth up to $20 billion over the next 10 years.

Congratulations by the way go to Ulrich Tibaut Houzanme for being the "most correct" in his predictions with a total upside gain of $328.56 in the market we set up at Inkling - you're the proud new owner of the new Apple Video iPod we said we'd give away as the bounty for participating. For those of you who didn't get in on the action this time around, we'll be doing this again, so watch the newsletter for more details about future markets we're running. But first, a bit of analysis...(read more)

The stock chart above compares an even more interesting set of potential futures for our four intrepid competitors (plus one) - for the five competitors now positioning for the next round of contract awards, supposedly coming in May - the GSA Networx Enterprise contract, which also includes a team led by Level 3 Communications in addition to the four bidders for the Universal contract.

So seeing the news this morning, I thought it'd be fun to run a Prediction Market on which of the five companies above would be the biggest winner in the GSA Networx Enterprise contract, which is supposed to be awarded in May. I set it up at Inkling and the feed from their site should be depicted above so please setup a username on InklingMarkets.com and then give us your opinion on whom you think will come out the winner in May.(read more)

 

News came in this morning that the world's largest telephone bill (the one for the U.S. Government) will be split between three companies - AT&T, Verizon and Qwest - but the most conspicuous snub came for Sprint, which GovExec details well in the excerpt below:

"Award of the Networx Universal contracts is a historic moment at GSA, and reflects our goal of providing transformational products and services to our federal customers at the best prices available in the marketplace," said GSA Administrator Lurita Doan. "I look forward to working with our new industry partners to provide the best possible service and value to our customer agencies and the American taxpayer."

Networx Universal will provide voice, IP, wireless, satellite and IP-centric services to 135 federal agencies at locations spanning 191 countries, and is expected to transform the current federal telecommunications system.

Sprint, which currently supplies about 30 percent of all government telecommunications services, was shut out of the new contract. The company's federal branch serves the Defense, Homeland Security, Transportation, Veterans Affairs and Interior departments, and the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (read more)