Qwest Will Provide Federal Agencies With MTIPS

Qwest Government Services, a sector of Qwest Communications, will provide federal agencies with Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services (MTIPS). The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) awarded Qwest for presenting federal agencies with secure connections to the public Internet.

To connect agencies to the Internet in full agreement with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, GSA created MTIPS. This service decreases the number of Internet connections necessary in government systems, providing basic security to various government officials.

“Qwest has configured MTIPS as a network-based service to ensure consistent, up-to-date Internet security without forcing an agency to maintain Internet security hardware and software on its own,” stated Senior Vice President and General Manager of Qwest Government Services in Arlington, VA, Diana Gowen.

To ensure that agency traffic remains in a private, secure domain, Qwest Government Services utilizes a private Multiprotocol Label Switching transport infrastructure, also called a Network Based Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network. Qwest also uses these services for gateways hosted at its CyberCenters.

How does this process function? An array of security services is applied, as Internet traffic flows through the aforementioned gateways. This includes intrusion detection and prevention services, firewall policy enforcement, e-mail scanning, and anti-virus and anti-spam management.

According to Gowen, “MTIPS ensures the secure transit of inter-agency traffic even if the Internet becomes unavailable due to an attack.”

Networx, operated by the U.S. General Services Administration, provides the greatest collection of government contracts as it offers extensive technical solutions, in addition to communications and networking services to various federal agencies. Qwest has an agreement with both Networx Enterprise and Networx Universal, which are valued at approximately $20 billion over the course of the 10-year contract. Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Services is the 40th product offered with Qwest’s Networx Universal agreement.