SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- USES Non-preemptable Telecommunications Services for the United States Antarctic Program (USAP)
- Notice Date
- 3/8/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- Contracting Office
- P.O. Box 190022, North Charleston SC 29419-9022
- ZIP Code
- 29419-9022
- Solicitation Number
- SSC-Charleston_MKTSVY_261EE
- Response Due
- 4/4/2005
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- 1 Introduction 1.1 The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWARSYSCEN), Charleston intends to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) employing FAR Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items. The estimated value of this firm fixed price, indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract is $9.9 million consisting of one (1) base year plus four (4) one-year option periods. This effort is to procure non-preemptable telecommunications services for the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) consisting of a C-Band satellite space segment in the Pacific Ocean Region (POR), teleport services, and terrestrial circuits. 2 Existing Service 2.1 Existing telecommunications service between McMurdo Station, Antarctica and the Continental United States (CONUS) is provided via INTELSAT 701, in the 180 degree East geostationary orbital position, with a local elevation look angle of 3.2 degrees. The current space segment consists of a duplex T-1, INTELSAT Business Services (IBS) circuit between the USAP Government Furnished Equipment (GFE), 11 meter C-Band satellite earth station designated BLK-02F3 (INTELSAT F3 qualified antenna) located at Black Island, Antarctica. Black Island is located approximately 22 miles South of McMurdo Station, 78 degrees, 07 minutes, 46.484 seconds South Latitude, 166 degrees, 09 minutes, 01.558 seconds East Longitude. GFE point-point microwave equipment provides circuit termination in McMurdo Station. CONUS space segment termination is provided by the SES Americom earth station in Brewster, WA, at 48 degrees 08 minutes North Latitude, 119 degrees 41 minutes West Longitude. The CONUS tail end is terminated to a GFE General Data-Comm time domain multiplexer (GDC MUX) co-located at the Americom teleport and terrestrial circuits for provision of telephony and other data services to the USAP. Existing circuit diagrams and data are available upon request. 3 Transition 3.1 The Vendor shall provide information as to how they plan to transition service from the existing provider. The Vendor will transition from the existing service, using existing infrastructure, to the new expanded service using existing, new and/or modified infrastructure (not excluding the GDC MUX). In the event that a planned transition to Internet Protocol (IP) only traffic, on the existing service, is not complete at the time of contract award, an additional GFE GDC MUX or other solution will be required at the National Science Foundation???s (NSF) Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Contractor Facility/Centennial, Colorado (CF/C), until the IP infrastructure is completed. The Vendor shall be prepared to provide service transition testing and certification(s) while minimizing downtime on existing Antarctic operations traffic. The preferred down-time should be limited to four (4) off-peak hours per day interleaved with the existing operational satellite service, over a period of up to 30 days, for testing and certification of the new service. Off-peak hours are tentatively defined as 1000 to 1400 GMT. 4 New Service Description 4.1 This acquisition shall provide a communications channel at rates no less than 3 million bits per second (Mbps), incrementally increasing to no greater than 10 Mbps to the GFE BLK-02F3 earth station on Black Island. The Vendor shall furnish end-to-end connectivity including commercially leased C-Band space segment, teleport, and terrestrial communications circuits between the teleport and the CF/C located at 7400 S. Tucson Way Centennial, Colorado 80112-3938. 4.2 The baseline requirement includes one year of end-to-end connectivity for a single carrier, 3 Mbps data circuit with teleport services, terrestrial back haul services, and optional redundant terrestrial back haul capability to CF/C. The Government intends to operate the link to transport IP network traffic. Options to incrementally increase the space segment and terrestrial circuit bandwidth to a maximum of 10 Mbps should be included in the proposal. The Government desires various bandwidth increment increase options with attendant costs for each option. The Vendor shall identify proposed terrestrial circuit technology type and associated quality specifications (e.g. latency, jitter, bit error rate, etc.). 4.3 While the Government intends to initiate bidirectional service at a data rate of at least 3 Mbps, other factors may cause service to begin at T-1 (1.544 Mbps) and transition to the baseline 3 Mbps service within the first year of the contract. The Vendor shall propose a flexible pricing structure that allows the Government to start service with a bidirectional T-1 data rate (1.544 Mbps) then increase to higher data rates at a later date if necessary without undue cost to the Government. 4.4 The estimated pricing structure in the proposal should include information on space segment reservation requirements, service ramp up times and terrestrial circuit service lead times at the various bandwidths proposed. 4.5 Given the legacy infrastructure and limited access to the Black Island earth terminal, offerors shall provide infrastructure recommendations to achieve the 10 Mbps end state throughput. Black Island, Antarctica is only accessible from October 1 to February 15th each year. 4.6 The Vendor will be responsible for identifying, managing and conducting any certification testing required by the satellite operator, teleport operator, or other Government agencies. The Vendor shall provide all services necessary to operate the teleport equipment and shall pay all fees associated with operating the teleport. The teleport shall provide all Radio Frequency equipment necessary to access the satellite. The terrestrial teleport should be located in a position that minimizes the terrestrial circuit distance while maintaining access to the proposed satellite. 4.7 The Vendor will provide satellite modem(s) at the designated teleport with compatible technical characteristics (e.g. data rate, modulation, forward error correction etc.), with modems selected by the Government for Black Island. The current modem under consideration for use at Black Island is the EF Data CDM-600 Modem with High Rate Option and Turbo Codec with or without Low Density Parity Coding (to be determined) and should be considered as the baseline modem architecture. Vendors may suggest alternatives along with the rationale for the alternative. The Vendor will include modulation scheme recommendations that make most efficient use of spectrum. 5 Quality Specification 5.1 The end-to-end Operational Availability (Ao) of the link shall be at least 99.95% as measured by Vendor recommended performance metrics (e.g. outage minutes per month, etc.). Ao will be based on bidirectional link performance. If one path is down (i.e. Black Island Transmit or Receive), then the entire link is considered down. Clear sky Corrected Bit Error Rate (CBER) shall be no more than 1*10E-7 with 1*10E-9 or less as the objective rate. Intervals when the CBER is higher than the value (TBD) established in the contract at either ground station will be considered outage periods for Ao calculation. The Vendor may also include in their proposal other system performance quality metrics that provide an overall assessment of link performance. 6 GFE Optional for Vendor teleport 6.1 The Vendor teleport facility may be required to provide space for and/or to house GFE including, but not limited to, network equipment. The Vendor may be required to provide a separate circuit between the NSF O & M Contractor at CF/C and their teleport for management and configuration of the GFE network equipment. 7 Monitoring, Technical and Engineering Support 7.1 The Vendor shall provide monitoring of software and hardware on a continuous basis. The Vendor shall provide a read-only Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) monitoring interface to GFE network management systems with IP addresses provided by the Government to facilitate the monitoring of critical circuit performance and equipment. The Vendor shall be available 24/7/365 via voice and data services (i.e. secure web, instant messaging, e-mail) for circuit coordination and trouble resolution. The use of SNMP Level 3 is preferred, but the Government will consider other alternatives with appropriate Vendor provided rationale. 7.2 The read-only SNMP generated monitoring interface, at a minimum, will include status of modems, SSPAs, network elements, Eb/No, and bit rate. The Vendor shall supply GFE maintenance support where applicable including, but not limited to, the existing GDC MUX equipment. 7.3 The Vendor shall provide general engineering support including, but not limited to, traffic transport, bandwidth upgrades, teleport reconfiguration and periodic circuit testing that might be required. The Vendor shall provide circuit diagrams and/or systems drawings with annual updates, outage reports, inventory reports, system documentation, maintenance manuals and operational procedures. The Vendor shall provide performance metrics that include trouble ticket closeout rate, mean time to respond for call back on a trouble report, circuit outage incidents, operational availability of circuits, and others. The Vendor shall develop and maintain a list of contacts and procedures necessary to interfacing with the National Science Foundation???s Operations and Maintenance Contractor for circuit and teleport operations, call back response times, citation to trouble reporting and resolution. The Vendor shall provide appropriate training for existing and/or new equipment installed during the course of this contract at CF/C. 8 Technical Approach 8.1 The Government is not seeking new and untried technical approaches to providing the service, but rather desires a solution that is industry accepted and low in technical risk. 8.2 The government currently does not foresee a requirement for the Vendor to install, or provide for Government installation of any equipment at the Black Island earth station. Proposals that include such an installation will be considered as long as there is clear benefit to the overall performance of the required service. Any equipment proposed for installation at Black Island shall include a complete technical description including nomenclature, size, installation requirements, specific interface characteristics, and detailed power requirements. 9 Additional Requirements 9.1 Vendors shall also provide information on their ability to provide a complete end-to-end telecommunications solution to the USAP including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony interface, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) circuit traffic transport, Wide Area Network (WAN) using TCI/IP and Internet. Service provider shall provide information on the Management, Technical, and Operational processes and procedures used to maintain the confidentially, integrity, and availability of the data transmitted across the Vendor???s telecommunication infrastructure between designated USAP sites. This includes contingency planning (maintaining services even in the event of failure), disaster recovery (restoral of services in the event of failure), and third party access to either the data or systems that control the telecommunication equipment necessary for maintaining the service. The Vendor shall provide synchronous operation details including time standards and clocking. 10 Schedule 10.1 Note: the desired Initial Operational Capability (IOC) date is Decemember 15, 2005 with a Final Operational Capability (FOC) of February 1, 2006. If needed, a pre-solicitation conference date with be determined. The anticipated contract award date is October 27, 2005. 11 Administrative 11.1 Interested offerors are invited to provide the Government a response to this announcement with a description of the proposed satellite, teleport, optional services, schedule, risks, transition plan overview and approximate costs to meet the baseline and future requirements. If travel to Antarctica is required for the execution of this contract, Vendors must comply with USAP physical, medical and dental requirements. Responses must include the following: (1) name and address of firm, (2) size of business: average annual revenue for past 3 years and number of employees, (3) ownership: Large, Small, Small Disadvantage, 8(a), Hubzone and/or Woman-Owned; (4) number of years in business: (5) two points of contact: name, title, phone, fax and email; (f) CAGE Code and DUNS Number (if available); (g) affiliate information: parent corporation, joint venture partners, potential teaming partners, prime contractor (if potential sub) or subcontractors (if potential prime); (h) a list of customers covering the past five years: highlight relevant work including a summary of work performed, contract number, contract type, dollar value for each customer reference and customer point of contact with phone number. THIS SYNOPSIS IS FOR INFORMATION AND PLANNING PURPOSES AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS A COMMITMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION ANNOUNCEMENT FOR PROPOSALS NO CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED FROM THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. NO REIMBURSEMENT WILL BE MADE FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH PROVIDING THE INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND ANY FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION REQUESTS. RESPONDENTS WILL NOT BE NOTIFIED OF THE RESULTS OF THE EVALUATION. RESPONDENTS DEEMED FULLY QUALIFIED WILL BE CONSIDERED IN ANY RESULTING SOLICITATION FOR THE REQUIREMENT. THE GOVERNMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CONSIDER A SMALL BUSINESS SET-ASIDE, HUB-ZONE OR 8(A) SET-ASIDE BASED ON RESPONSES HERETO. THE APPLICABLE NAICS CODE IS 334220 WITH A SIZE STANDARD OF 750 employees, CLOSING DATE FOR RESPONSES IS 4 APR 2005. Responses should be provided in MS Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) electronic formats. The Government point-of-contact for technical information, including access to system drawings, is Jack Buchanan, Code 672JB at (843) 218-5583 or email: jack.buchanan@navy.mil . All replies shall be submitted to the Contract Specialist, Joanne Banks, Code 0216JB, P.O. Box 190022, North Charleston, SC 29419-9022. If any information is considered proprietary, it MUST be so marked to be protected by the Government as such. (Consult DFARS 227-7013 and appropriate counsel to determine if the data to be presented should be marked proprietary.) Offerors are encouraged to respond to this request for information (RFI); however, lack of a response to this RFI does not preclude participation in the upcoming procurement. The Government will use the responses from the RFI to help solidify the requirements for this procurement. The Government intends to provide the information and documentation received, including that marked as proprietary, to Government personnel and Vendors from Raytheon Polar Services Company (RPSC) and Strategic Systems Technology, Incorporated (SSTI) provided non-disclosure agreements exist with said companies.
- Web Link
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Click on this link to access the SPAWAR E-Commerce Central Web Site
(https://e-commerce.spawar.navy.mil/Command/02/ACQ/navhome.nsf/homepage?readform&db=navbusopor.nsf&whichdoc=9AFD5B7F0AC42F7C88256FBD00421123&editflag=0)
- Record
- SN00764942-W 20050310/050308212746 (fbodaily.com)
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