"For the average NAVAIR network user, the assumption of responsibility should be transparent," said Bonnie Bowes, NAVAIR's NMCI transition manager and deputy chief information officer for operations.

According to Bowes, assumption of responsibility (AOR) means that EDS and its partners own and operate the current information technology environment as-is. Discussions are still ongoing to understand the changes that occur at cutover to the long-term NMCI environment.

"At AOR, we'll have the same help desk numbers, the same support contractors, the same network access methods, etc.," Bowes said.

In a nationwide video teleconference in December, Information Strike Force representatives said they will have representatives visiting employee desks in the coming months to better understand the capabilities at the desktop today and the requirements that customers have to do their jobs.

"We will probably see changes at the desktop level in late spring and throughout the summer," Bowes noted.

IT contracts at NAVAIR sites have been extended through January to match their NMCI transition dates.

Details recently outlined in discussions with the NMCI Information Strike Force include the following:

- Users with an NMCI seat will be able to log into the network from any wall plug. NMCI portable users, for example, will be able to plug into any active conference room wall plug or any vacant docking station.

- NMCI will use the industry standard for e-mail, 50 megabytes per mail account. Currently, e-mail storage limits across NAVAIR vary considerably.

- NMCI will rely on a tier-one help desk 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. About 1,200 help desk analysts will be available from either San Diego, Calif. or Norfolk, Va. to assist with network problems.

- Local tier-two and tier-three support will be dispatched from these central help desks to assist users face-to-face at the desktop. According to the NMCI service level agreements, mission critical problems must be resolved within four hours. All other problems must be resolved within one business day.

- Service level agreements also specify that Internet access must be obtained in 15 seconds or less for each user.

- Users that move between classified and unclassified work have two options for their seat equipment: a single computer with two hard drives that would be rebooted to clean the random access memory when shifting between the two hard drives or two central processing units with a single monitor.

Additional details and a catalog of equipment available under the contract can be found at NMCI web sites, nmci.navair.navy.mil and www.eds.com/nmci. The EDS Web site is updated at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. daily. Questions are welcome at both sites. It is highly recommend that employees visit the EDS Web site to obtain official questions and answers. Answers posted on the EDS Web site have been verified through the security, transition/technical and financial experts within EDS.