Lockheed Martin group wins 3 billion dollar USPS contract

A group of technology and telecommunications heavyweights led by Lockheed Martin Corp has won a potential three billion dollar contract from the US Postal Service to revamp its vast data communication networks, Lockheed Martin said Monday.

The deal requires the Lockheed team to provide managed network services across the entire US Postal Service, covering more than 37,000 locations.

“The UCC program enables the US Postal Service to procure all network and telecommunication services via one supplier, which will deliver significant efficiencies and reduce overall operational costs for processing and delivering the mail,” Judy Marks, president of Lockheed Martin’s Distribution Technologies business, said in a statement.

In late morning trading, Lockheed Martin’s stock was down 38 cents, or 0.67 percent, at 55.94 dollars.

The Lockheed-led team also includes Hewlett-Packard, AT and T, Verizon, Qwest, SBC, BellSouth and Hughes Network Systems.

Under the deal, the US Postal Service will integrate all its postal data communications networks, including the wide area network (WAN) and local area networks (LAN), into a single network that will provide data transport, voice, wireless, remote access and network management services, Lockheed said.

The Universal Computing Connectivity (UCC) award is worth a potential three billion dollars over 18 years, if the initial six year contract is renewed with four, three-year, options.