The federal relay service provides an intermediary telecommunications service for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf, or speech disabled, including federal employees, for communications…

This contract award, valued at $757,685.35, was issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to Sprint Communications Co LP, a major telecommunications provider. The contract is for the Federal Relay Service, which provides intermediary telecommunications services for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech disabled, including federal employees, to communicate with and within the federal government. The award includes services such as voice/federal text telephone, federal speech-to-speech, federal captioned telephone, federal internet protocol relay, federal video relay, and federal captioned relay. This contract is not set aside and is a delivery order under a larger contract vehicle. Sprint has received numerous federal contract awards, including a $1.09 billion Wireless Spiral 3 Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract from the Naval Supply Systems Command and a $5 million Blanket Purchase Agreement with the Health Resources and Services Administration, demonstrating the company's ability to provide comprehensive wireless solutions to the federal government.

The federal relay service provides an intermediary telecommunications service for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf, or speech disabled, including federal employees, for communications with and within the federal government. Public law 100-542 requires the general services administration among other things, to continue to operate an existing relay service for text telephone users; to promote research to reduce costs and improve capabilities of telecommunications devices and systems that provide accessibility to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf, or speech disabled; and to take technological improvements into consideration when planning alterations and modifications to the governments fedrelay. The proposed action will provide the following unique services to VA: voice/federal text telephone (FTTY) federal speech to speech (FSS) federal captioned telephone (FCTS) federal internet protocol (IP) relay (FIPR) federal video relay service (FVR) federal captioned relay (FCR)