The Daily LedgerMoney Trail | Federal Spending
Money Trail: A $28.3 million Veterans Affairs wireless contract action went to Cellco Partnership on October 5
USAspending records for October 2 to 8, 2026 show a $28,283,738.07 definitive contract action to CELLCO PARTNERSHIP from the Department of Veterans Affairs for enterprise wireless telecommunications services.
Key takeaways
- The Department of Veterans Affairs obligated $28,283,738.07 to CELLCO PARTNERSHIP on October 5, 2026, under definitive contract 36C10B23C0015.
- The award description covers wireless telecommunications services for the VA enterprise, including data and email, telephone and voice including voicemail, and wireless internet.
- The action was the second largest Department of Veterans Affairs contract transaction in the October 2 to 8 window, behind only the $900,485,186.84 delivery order to TRIWEST HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE CORP.
What the record shows
The transaction is listed in USAspending as a definitive contract with an action date of October 5, 2026. The awarding agency and the awarding sub agency are both the Department of Veterans Affairs. The federal action obligation recorded for the transaction is $28,283,738.07.
The award description reads: wireless telecommunications services to include data (email), telephone/voice (including voicemail) and/or wireless internet for the VA enterprise. In plain terms, this is the connectivity contract that keeps phones, email, and mobile data running across the VA system, which operates hospitals, clinics, and benefits offices nationwide. The figure is an obligation, meaning funds committed under the contract action, not a single payment made on October 5.
How it compares
In the October 2 to 8 window, the Department of Veterans Affairs recorded $1,116,368,315.98 in contract obligations across 1,523 transactions, the largest reported department total for the week. The Cellco Partnership action is about 2.5 percent of that total. The largest VA action, the $900,485,186.84 delivery order to TRIWEST HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE CORP on October 7, accounts for about 80.7 percent of the department total on its own, and The Daily Ledger covered that order on October 9. The next largest VA actions after Cellco were $13,645,731.33 to A-TEAM SOLUTIONS LLC for pharmacist and pharmacy staffing services and $11,495,285.84 to THE MITRE CORPORATION for systems engineering and integration support.
Department of Defense contract data is largely absent from the USAspending feed for this period, a reporting gap flagged in the source data, so department rankings for the week exclude meaningful Defense figures.
Data vintage: USAspending contract transactions with action dates from October 2 to 8, 2026, pulled October 12, 2026.
Sources
1. USAspending.gov award record, $28,283,738.07 definitive contract to CELLCO PARTNERSHIP: https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_36C10B23C0015_3600_-NONE-_-NONE-/
2. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Fiscal Data, Debt to the Penny dataset: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Statement, September 28, 2026; Debt to the Penny.
Sources and methodology
Methodology. Daily cash figures are from the U.S. Treasury’s Daily Treasury Statement (DTS) for September 28, 2026, the government’s official daily cash-flow report. The DTS records money actually moving in and out of Treasury accounts; it is not the same as the budget deficit, which is measured monthly on an accrual-adjusted basis.
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Statement – operating cash balance, September 28, 2026 (fiscaldata.treasury.gov)
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, Debt to the Penny – September 28, 2026 (fiscaldata.treasury.gov)
Never miss a Daily Number
The Ledger Brief delivers the day’s numbers in five minutes, every morning. Free forever.
Subscribe free