According to documents obtained through a Public Records Act requested by the Sacramento Bee, Comcast was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to overhaul the technology network for the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The contract began in September and will allow Comcast to swap out the DMV’s computer network. The goal is to improve the DMV’s internet speed so that customer transactions can be processed faster. The documents revealed that the contract states that the DMV will have to pay almost $400,000 in monthly recurring charges for five years, which comes out to a total of $24 million over those five years. The DMV made the following statement regarding the technology network overhaul,
This new agreement will provide the DMV with more reliable statewide connectivity and bandwidth, offers redundancy, reduces downtime and will allow us to better interact with field offices statewide.
The DMV claims that the upgrade will save the department about $3 million each year. An audit in March from the state’s Department of Finance found that an “insufficient network system infrastructure and lack of monitoring processes contributed to field office outages, impacting customers’ ability to obtain DMV services. The audit offered several recommendations such as accepting credit cards at field offices and making more use of text message notifications. The contract also revealed that Comcast will make an investment of about $6.2 million “in good faith partnership with the DMV.” Hopefully the technology network upgrade is well worth the money that the DMV will be paying to Comcast.
