The General Services Administration (GSA) is gathering feedback that it will present to telecom service providers regarding supply chain and other security requirements for 5G wireless services that the Federal government will be acquiring, a GSA official said today at the agency’s 5G Government Symposium event.
Allen Hill, director of the Office of Telecommunications in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, spoke highly at today’s event about the ability of 5G service to enable innovation. But he also emphasized that GSA supply chain risk management personnel were “working through” the agency’s obligations under the Section 889 Federal Acquisition Rule for security requirements regarding 5G services “to make sure all of our services are delivered in a secure fashion.”
Hill said his goal was to gather feedback from various Federal agencies on 5G services and then to present that to industry. “We want agencies to be able to come back and say ‘Here are my concerns . . . Here is what we need.’” Then, he said, GSA will pull that information together, present it to industry, and say “help solve our Federal government needs.”
He said GSA wants to “give it to industry in one package.”
“Everyone talks about how security and how important that is,” Hill said. “We need to work with [industry] to make sure that what they are going to bring meets the needs of the agencies,” he added.
