{"id":86611,"date":"2010-07-23T00:37:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T16:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/u-s-army-selects-viasat-for-blue-force-tracking-2-contract\/"},"modified":"2010-07-23T00:37:37","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T16:37:37","slug":"u-s-army-selects-viasat-for-blue-force-tracking-2-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/u-s-army-selects-viasat-for-blue-force-tracking-2-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Army Selects ViaSat for Blue Force Tracking 2 Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

[07-22-10] The U.S. Army<\/strong> selected ViaSat<\/strong> as the winner of the Blue Force Tracking 2 (BFT-2) program contract over Comtech Mobile Datacom<\/strong>, the competitors announced in separate statements issued July 21.
\n    ViaSat said it was awarded $477 million under the BFT-2 indefinite-delivery, indefinite contract and received the first delivery order for $37.7 million to fund deliveries of first article and initial production terminals and other ground networking equipment. ViaSat\u2019s BFT-2 system is derived from its ArcLight mobile satcom technology, which uses VSAT antennas to provide broadband communications-on-the-move voice, video and services.
\n    Comtech, the proprietary owner of the BFT waveform, offered the Army its BFT-HC terminal, which is compatible with BFT legacy systems. Comtech\u2019s said it was notified by the Army that it was not selected as the program manager and vendor and that an award was made to ViaSat based on a total evaluated price of $249.9 million \u2014 about 50 percent lower than the total evaluated price of Comtech\u2019s BFT-2 proposal
\n     The Army\u2019s decision surprised Raymond James analyst Chris Quilty, who told Satellite News<\/em> July 21 that he was \u201c98 percent sure\u201d Comtech would win the award based on the Army\u2019s frequent BFT and MTS contract ceiling increases with the company. After the contract award was announced, Quilty told Satellite TODAY<\/em> he could not explain the difference between Comtech\u2019s and ViaSat\u2019s statements. \u201cObviously, investors see this development as a shock. I am still trying to determine the difference between the two numbers. The $249.9 million figure, stated by Comtech, implies that the BFT-2 program will spend an average of approximately $41.7 million per year on BFT-2 services and hardware based on a six-year anticipated rollout.\u201d
\n    Neither the Army nor the BFT-2 development competitors could be reached for immediate comment, but Comtech CEO Fred Kornberg said his company plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Government Accountability Office<\/strong>. \u201cGiven our proven performance during a war-time environment, the performance capability of our BFT-HC transceiver and our belief that Comtech offers a lower overall program risk to the U.S Army as well as other factors, we anticipate protesting the award given to the third party,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Related Stories-<\/h2>\n

\nComtech Expects Blue Force Tracking 2 Decision by End of July<\/b> \"\"   \t\t\tSatellite News   \t\t\tJuly 21, 2010
\n[07-21-10] Comtech Mobile Datacom expects the U.S. Army to announce its multi-year $200 million Blue Force Tracking 2 (BFT2) contract winner by end of the month, and one analyst said the Army s moves indicate that Comtech is the\u2026<\/p>\n

Comtech Wins $226.7 Million Army Tracking System Contract Increase<\/b>   \t\t\tSatellite Today   \t\t\tJuly 14, 2010
\n[07-14-10] Comtech Mobile Datacom received a contract modification to its Movement Tracking System (MTS) program contract with the U.S. Army, authorizing two six-month performance period extension options and a $226.7 million\u2026<\/p>\n

U.S. Army Places Blue Force Tracking Order with Comtech<\/b>   \t\t\tSatellite Today   \t\t\tJuly 9, 2010
\n[07-09-10] Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp. received a $22.2 million order for mobile satellite data communications transceivers under its $384 million Blue Force Tracking (BFT) IDIQ program contract with the U.S. Army, the company\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[07-22-10] The U.S. Army selected ViaSat as the winner of the Blue Force Tracking 2 (BFT-2) program contract over Comtech Mobile Datacom, the competitors announced in separate statements issued July 21.     ViaSat said it was awarded $477 million under the BFT-2 indefinite-delivery, indefinite contract and received the first delivery order for $37.7 million to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}