WASHINGTON -- CenturyLink announced that it was selected by the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as a key provider for its Wide Area Network and related high-speed network services. 

Under SSA's dual carrier network approach, CenturyLink won the task order with the largest scope and is responsible for all single and dual carrier requirements, including architecting and deploying SSA's 100 gigabit business-critical data replication network. 

The task order was awarded via the General Services Administration's Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program and has a minimum value of $470 million over the 15-year life of the contract. 

"Social Security's network, called SSANet, is the central nervous system of all SSA operations, which touch every American from birth throughout their entire life," said David Young, CenturyLink senior vice president, public sector. "SSA continues to place its trust in CenturyLink as a mission-critical network provider by extending and expanding its relationship with us as we help the agency modernize its IT systems that provide crucial services to the American public." 

CenturyLink will provide Ethernet, virtual private network, intrusion prevention and self-healing optical wave ring services with speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 100 Gbps at each of SSA's more than 1,700 locations in the U.S. and around the world, including data centers, field offices, foreign service posts, headquarters, program service centers, regional offices, remote operations centers and external business partner sites. 

The award also includes secure high-speed cloud connectivity, proactive distributed denial of service protections and a network operations center that supports all SSA activities and its more than 60,000 employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. 

In addition to critical core network services, CenturyLink will provide dedicated program and operations management staff, as well as lifecycle engineering services, in support of SSA's mission to constantly evolve and improve a premier large enterprise network.

CenturyLink has been helping SSA move to next-generation networking services since the company was named the agency's primary managed networking services provider in 2012 via GSA's Networx program.

CenturyLink was the first supplier to receive authority to operate under GSA's 15-year, $50 billion EIS program in March of last year. EIS is a multiple-award contract vehicle for federal government agencies to purchase information technology and telecommunications infrastructure services. It gives federal agencies the flexibility and agility to migrate to modern communications and IT services that meet strict government security standards. 

CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL)