US Sprint Communications Co was quick to respond to the MCI move, characterising it as yet another attempt to undermine the FTS2000 contract – while its simplicity is superficially appealing, a closer look will reveal it to be nonsense: the supposed US Sprint prices that MCI quotes don’t accurately reflect the current contract – the MCI proposal is not an apples to apples comparison, but more like apples to Spam; it points out that the FTS 2000 vendors are obligated, both contractually and competitively, to keep prices at levels that are comparable with and competitive with those in the commercial market and that contract is based on economies of scale for the government overall, so that higher usage of the integrated FTS2000 services ensures lower prices, while MCI’s proposal would allow it to cherry pick and cream skim selected traffic, undermining the contract’s goal of passing on the maximum cost benefits and economies to government users.
