The US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) picked AT&T to modernise its communications capabilities through four contracts.

The contracts were awarded via the US government’s Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) programme and are valued at more than $167 million over five years if all options are completed.

EIS was designed to award contracts to service providers and vendors to help government agencies update their IT and telecommunications infrastructure services.

FEMA’s role in aiding US citizens and communities has taken on added importance as climate events and natural disasters become more frequent.

AT&T will update legacy FEMA systems covering voice and data, wireless LAN, Contact Centre Capability Modernisation Programme (C3MP), and National Warning System.

The operator stated the deals make it the main provider of most of FEMA’s communication services.

AT&T’s to-do list with FEMA include a voice and data platform which will shrink the agency’s enterprise network footprint while also lowering management and maintenance resource support costs.

The operator will also beef up FEMA’s security and provision new technologies including Wi-Fi 6, across its infrastructure and service platforms.

For the voice and data components, AT&T stated it will provide a resilient, and recoverable contact centre solution along with a path to migrate the centres to the cloud.

AT&T has a history with FEMA, which is a customer of the operator’s FirstNet service.

As such, FEMA can tap into FirstNet’s wireless capabilities for redundant or alternate access to data networks.