NSA to seek bids on $5 billion upgrade of IT systems

The federal government's National Security Agency will seek bids in January for a $5 billion contract over 10 years to upgrade its non-spying systems, Reuters news service reported Friday.

Earlier, the agency had planned to seek proposals this month for the job. The agency said the delay was to fine-tune specifications, with a proposed start date of no later than January 2002.

AT&T, Computer Sciences Corp. and OAO of Greenbelt, Md. have formed teams to bid, said a NSA spokeswoman.

The job, dubbed "Project Groundbreaker," consists of four areas which support spying and data protection missions. These include distributing computing, enterprise and security management, networking and telephony, and enhanced-network-based communications services.

The NSA spokeswoman said the agency would decide by next summer whether to go through with the project, which is a milestone for an agency whose Cold War research helped spur the computer revolution.