Dive Brief:
- MetTel and TekSynap are working together to provide digital transformation and communication system modernization services for the Georgia Army National Guard and the Tennessee Army National Guard, the two companies announced this week.
- The three-year Georgia project includes upgrades to connectivity systems security, bandwidth and resilience across Army National Guard facilities statewide, the managed network service provider said in an announcement. MetTel and TekSynap will replace existing legacy systems with software-defined wide area network infrastructure.
- A similar project in Tennessee, valued at approximately $2.3 million, will provide connectivity to 75 facilities over the next four years, MetTel said in a separate announcement. Implementation began a year ago, Don Parente, VP of sales and solution architecture at MetTel Public Sector, said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
The Army National Guard’s modernization efforts build on MetTel’s growing portfolio of government projects, as agencies struggle to free their operations from decades of accumulated technical debt.
“The Georgia Army National Guard needed more than an equipment refresh — they required a complete infrastructure transformation," Parente said in the release. “This is about ensuring Georgia's Guard has the connectivity backbone to support both state emergency response and federal mission requirements.”
Last year, MetTel, a partner to some of North America’s largest telcos, completed a five-year, $230 million-plus revamp of the U.S. General Services Administration’s communications network. The project connected the agency’s more than 800 global sites using Zero Trust-secured SD-WAN, broadband and Ethernet services, as well as low-earth-orbiting satellite capabilities for geographically dispersed field offices.
MetTel has architected similar scalable solutions for multiple government agencies, Parente told Channel Dive via email.
The company’s federal footprint extends to landline upgrades, including a $54 million U.S. Veterans Administration project announced in August. The VA modernization leveraged DataRemote’s POTS in a Box copper line replacement solution. The U.S. Postal Service selected MetTel for a massive landline transformation across more than 17,000 locations in 2024.
The U.S. government pours more than $100 billion into IT systems annually, primarily to operate and maintain existing legacy systems, according to a GAO study published in July 2025. The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform advanced nine bills that aim to modernize federal infrastructure and streamline procurement processes Wednesday.
The Army National Guard projects grew out of a strategic alliance between MetTel and national security and defense agency IT service provider TekSynap solidified last fall.
“TekSynap brings deep DOD experience and program management acumen,” Parente said. “MetTel provides the services.”
The deals also benefited from MetTel’s reseller relationship with satellite communication network Starlink, in place since Nov. 2024.
“Starlink is the ultimate continuity of operations solution because it never overlaps with terrestrial facilities,” Parente said.
