U.S. Department of Commerce, Room 4327, Washington, DC 20230

58 -- NATO: LEASE OF INTERNATIONAL TRANSMISSION BEARERS IN SUPPORT OF NATO'S FUTURE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM SOL CO-8452-LTX DUE 011599 POC Alexis Kemper (202-482-1512) The NATO C3 Agency invites bids to Acquire a Lease of Commercially Available International Transmission Bearers in Support of NATO's Future General Purpose Communications System (NGCS),in particular Phase I the NATO CORE Network International Backbone, a requirement has been identified for a number of Commercially Leased International Transmission bearers namely 2048kbits/s structured E1 Links. The Commercially Leased Links will supplement the existing NATO digital transmission assets and interconnect the planned eighteen NATO Core Switches deployed across the NATO member nations. In particular, it should be noted that transatlantic E1 links are required to sites in Washington, DC and to Norfolk, Virginia, USA. In accordance with the newly deregulated European Telecommunication Market, NATO will for the first time contract this Leased Line service via an International Competitive Bid Contract. The successful bidder will be contracted to provide NATO's NGCS Wide Area Communication bearers for an initialperiod not exceeding three years. The IFB package will not contain material of a classified nature. However, the successful bidder, may be required to handle and store material at the level of NATO RESTRICTED. All applicants must be certified to compete in NATO ICB by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Telecommunications. Submit all nomination requests to Alexis Kemper (202-482-5834) by COB 15 January 1999. Posted 12/23/98 (W-SN283311). (0357)

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