Lumen is pleased to announce it was awarded a contract under the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract, with a ceiling of $151 billion. This contract encompasses a broad range of work areas that allow for the rapid delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed and agility.

About the SHIELD contract

As described in publicly released award announcements, SHIELD is a multiple-award IDIQ that allows MDA and other Department of War components to compete and issue task orders under a single, flexible enterprise vehicle, with a period of performance that may extend through December 2035.¹ The vehicle emphasizes open systems architectures, digital engineering, model-based systems engineering, agile processes and AI/ML-enabled applications.

This is a multiple-award contract. Award of a position on the SHIELD IDIQ does not guarantee any task orders or revenue.

A network foundation for layered defense

In a recent interview with Sr. Account Director of Specialized Sales – Federal Shane Swenson, he explained in very simple terms how layered defense only works if every piece can talk to every other piece. Sensors, command centers and response forces are spread across the country, operated by different organizations and built in different decades. All these pieces and parts must be prepared to act as one on the worst of days, when conditions would be least forgiving. That, at its core, is a network problem.

Of course, we know that Lumen does not build sensors, weapons or mission applications. What Lumen does is run and build the secure, high-capacity network foundation underneath them, the “connective tissue” that lets those systems exchange information reliably, including when conditions are stressed or degraded.

For agencies modernizing defense infrastructure on compressed timelines, that distinction matters. It means building on network infrastructure that already reaches where the mission needs it, adding new systems and partners as requirements evolve and keeping communications resilient the whole way.

Under the SHIELD/IDIQ contract, a layered homeland defense will be built over the next decade by many hands. Lumen will contribute the network underneath it and that is work the company has spent decades preparing for and providing.

Layered defense depends on a network that can carry the mission. See how Lumen supports public sector missions with secure, resilient network infrastructure.

¹Missile Defense Agency, Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) Multiple Award IDIQ Contract—Notice of Awards, SAM.gov, December 2025.

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