SOW_Prebid_Presentation.PPTX

RFP: INTERNET SERVICES FOR

US EMBASSY LUSAKA

Overview of Technical Criteria

Pre-bid Meeting Thursday June 21st, 2018

Consolidated Contract Our objective is to obtain high quality Internet Connectivity with a high level of service and support for the lowest price possible.

The US Embassy is made up of many different organizations. In this case, three of the largest have come together to issue a single RFP:

The U.S. Department of State (State) The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) We believe a consolidated contract will offer us a higher level of customer support from the selected vendor(s) by justifying their investment in providing quality service.

Technical Evaluation Criteria The evaluation criteria in this RFP are very detailed – we need the information to evaluate your ability to deliver the services requested.

We have listed and described each of the evaluation criteria in the text of the RFP. An example is below:

A1.6 Data Transfer Limits The circuits provided under this category must operate without any data volume transfer limits, caps, or quotas. The only limitation on circuit throughput should be the quoted bandwidth of the circuit.

It is critical that your response address each criteria clearly. For the example above, your response must clearly and explicitly indicate there are no data volume transfer limits on the circuit type being discussed.

Proposals that fail to address any of the evaluation criteria may be disqualified.

Consolidated Contract This is a complex RFP, and we understand preparing a response for it will be a significant effort.

We encourage you to carefully read the RFP. If there are questions, you should ask them to ensure you can submit a conforming proposal.

The criteria listed in this RFP become the eventual components of the statement of work in the final contract.

Divided into 3 Categories of Service

(A) Production Internet Connectivity Service in Lusaka, Zambia

(B) Non-Production Internet Connectivity Services in Lusaka, Zambia

(C) Point to Point Data Circuits between locations in Lusaka, Zambia

From the RFP:

G.4. Respondents are encouraged to offer on all three Categories of Service if possible, however this is not required if they are not able to provide the services requested in a particular category.

G.5. Respondents who elect to offer on a particular category must agree to furnish all the data circuits contained within that category.

(A) Production Internet Connectivity Service in Lusaka, Zambia

These are our highest priority data circuits.

They have the highest level SLA requirements.

They have more complicated requirements for international and last mile connectivity.

Vendors who are unable to meet the international or last mile connectivity requirements may wish to consider partnerships if necessary.

Category A Circuits – Additional Highlights

Circuit A1 Option 1: Internet Connectivity Services for US Embassy Lusaka OpenNet VPN

Dedicated Internet Connectivity with a minimum bidirectional throughput of 10,240 Kbits/sec (10Mbits/sec) plus /29 subnet of publicly routable IPV4 address space (14 usable addresses).

Circuit A1 Option 2: Internet Connectivity Services for US Embassy Lusaka OpenNet VPN

Dedicated Internet Connectivity with a minimum bidirectional throughput of 36,864 Kbits/sec (36Mbits/sec) plus /29 subnet of publicly routable IPV4 address space (6 usable addresses).

10mb/sec vs 36 mb/sec? What’s going on here?

This is the same circuit We anticipate awarding one or the other Possibly start with one and upgrade to the second shortly after award

A1.2 Latency to the US The circuits in this category must provide an average Round Trip Time (RTT) latency of 300ms or less to ASN 6966 as tested from the customer handoff to IP address 169.252.4.21 over a total of 1000 packets on an unloaded circuit.

A1.4 Packet Loss The circuits in this category must provide for a packet loss of 0.0% (no packets lost out of 1000) to ASN 6966 as tested from the customer handoff to IP address 169.252.4.21 over a total of 1000 packets on an unloaded circuit.

A2.5 Routing The circuit provider must have a direct interconnection (on either a Peering or Transit basis) with a major Internet Service Provider in the United States (Eg: AT&T, CenturyLink/Level3, Verizon, GTT, Sprint, HE).

A2.8 Additional Subnet for Circuit A3 For circuit A3 only, USAID intends to operate its own edge router beyond the ISP’s handoff and will require one fully routable /30 subnet to address that router. Further USAID equipment located behind their edge router will require a separate fully routable /29 subnet. The ISP should be prepared to work with USAID technical staff in order to configure the necessary routing for these subnets.

A3.1 Overland Connectivity The circuits in this category must be supported by a minimum of two (2) fully diverse fiber optic connections from Zambia to regional undersea cables. To be considered fully diverse, the routing of these overland cables must not exit from Zambia into the same neighboring country. Please provide a detailed map of these connections in your proposal, along with a table indicating (a) Owner/Operator of the physical cable (list all, if multiple segments) (b) circuit speed (c) current average circuit utilization (d) primary or backup route.

We are asking this to ensure we have sufficient, actual redundancy on these circuits and others we procure separate from this contract.

This data will not be shared - it is “Procurement Sensitive” and will be closely protected among only a limited number of staff in the Embassy.

Note: This table is for example purposes only – these providers may or may not actually exist or provide connectivity along these routes.

Example Response to A3.1

A3.2 Undersea Connectivity The circuits in this category must be supported by a minimum of two (2) fully diverse undersea fiber optic cables with geographically diverse routing and landing points. Please list the undersea cables in your proposals, and if you have an ownership stake or direct contract the cable consortium or if you contract with a third party (please identify them in your proposal) for access to the undersea cable.

Please also list the amount of bandwidth you have access to on the circuit.

Note: This table is for example purposes only – these providers may or may not actually exist or provide connectivity along these routes.

Example Response to A3.2

A4.1 Fiber Optic Primary Connection to the Service Location The primary delivery path for the circuit must be fiber optic cable from the provider’s hub in Lusaka to the US Embassy (for circuits A1, A2 and A3) and CDC (for Circuit A4). Please provide in your response a map of the route these cables will take from your Lusaka hub to the service location, including details on any intermediate points of presence.

A4.2 Ownership & Installation of Primary Fiber Optic Cable Please provide details on who will own and do the physical install the Fiber Optic Cable discussed in your response to A4.1 – either your organization, or a subcontractor (please identify the subcontractor).

A4.3 Maintenance, Testing and Repair of Primary Fiber Optic Cable

A5.1 Uptime Monitoring & Alerting The service provider will continuously monitor the condition and performance of the circuits provided to the US Embassy, and collect, log and make this data accessible in real time to the U.S. Embassy through a web based portal.

A5.2 Alerting & Notification for Unplanned Degradation or Failure The service provider will provide notification within 5 minutes of any degradation or failure of the circuit via email, SMS or voice call to identified points of contact on 24x7x365 basis. This includes notifications due to degradation or failure of either last mile, regional or international link, including notices of loss of redundancy and restoration of service.

A5.3 Service Advisories for Planned Events The service provider will provide notification to identified points of contact in advance during business hours via email of any planned network maintenance, repairs or upgrades that would impact the circuit or decrease its redundancy.

A7.1 Circuit Availability The circuit must have an overall availability, in conformance with the Service Quality indicators detailed in A1, of 99.6% when calculated on the basis of a calendar month. This translates to no more than 3 hours of downtime or performance degradation in any given month. Please detail your plans to meet this part of the SLA.

A7.2 Technical Support & Repair Availability – Business Hours 10 minutes via telephone or email, and within 90 minutes for onsite response A7.3 Technical Support & Repair Availability – Off Hours 30 minutes via telephone or email, and within 120 minutes for onsite response

A8.2 Circuit Upgradeability Circuits provided under this contract should be administratively upgradable in 1mbit/sec increments to a minimum of 50mb/sec without needing to replace the underlying hardware. Please describe your plans to meet this requirement.

A8.3 Modification of Existing Circuits Future modifications to existing circuits provided under this contract, such as bandwidth increase, additional IP addresses, etc should be activated and available for customer use within 5 business days of a signed amendment of this contract.

(B) Non-Production Internet Connectivity Services in Lusaka, Zambia

These circuits are used for ancillary systems outside of our main network.

They are important to us, but less critical as the circuits in Category A.

The requirements for international connectivity are less stringent and the SLA and response times are also more relaxed.

They are delivered to the same locations at the circuits in Category A.

(C)Point to Point Data Circuits between locations in Lusaka, Zambia These are private interconnections between the US Embassy location in Ibex Hill and branch locations in Lusaka.

Despite the title of the RFP, these are not routable Internet Circuits.

We will accept L2, L3 or Dark Fiber topologies for these circuits as long as they meet the minimum criteria spelled out in the proposal.

We understand that with Dark Fiber, some of the monitoring and alerting capabilities would not be available.

Category C Circuits – Service Locations

U.S. Embassy Lusaka Eastern end of Kabulonga Road Ibex Hill

351/4740 Independence Avenue Woodlands, Lusaka, Zambia

Other Highlighted Points A1.2 – Technical/ Engineering Point of Contact In addition to the Account Manager, the Vendor shall assign a Technical or Engineering point of contact who is familiar with all technical aspects of the circuits supporting the US Embassy and can serve as a technical point of escalation for issues that are beyond the scope of normal support desk capabilities.

A1.3 – After Hours Contact Outside of normal business hours the Vendor shall make available a named point of contact via phone or email beyond their Network Operations Center who is familiar with the US Embassy account and can coordinate response to urgent issues or issues where the Network Operations Center is unable to resolve the issue to the satisfaction of the US Embassy. This may be the same person as the Account Manager, but is not required to be.

Access for Fiber Optic Cable We currently have fiber from 3 separate providers, including SmartNet (Single Route Only), installed to our Demarc Room.

We have additional conduit capacity from various points on the Embassy property to the Demarc Room.

Bringing the cable from the public right of way to those access points (including any lateral boring) is the responsibility of the vendor.

After this presentation we can go and look at the demarc room and those access points if requested.

C1.5 Roof Access and Line of Sight The U.S. Embassy may provide limited and reasonable roof space at the point of demarcation for vendor furnished CPE but cannot guarantee clear line of sight in all directions. Vendor is responsible for ensuring its far end points of presence are within available line of site of the point of demarcation.

D1.1 Restricted Access The service location and point of demarcation for all circuits delivered under this contract are in restricted access areas controlled by the U.S. Embassy. Approval is required in advance for vendor personnel to access these locations and shall be at all times escorted by approved U.S. Embassy staff while on site. The vendor shall, in a timely fashion, furnish information requested by the U.S. Embassy about its personnel who need access to these locations.

The offeror shall address its plan to obtain all licenses and permits required by local law (see DOSAR 652.242-73 in Section 2). If offeror already possesses the locally required licenses and permits, a copy shall be provided.

P. Technological Refreshment After contract award, the Government may; […] request changes within the scope of the contract. These changes may be required to improve performance or react to changes in technology.

The Contractor may propose […] products or services that may become available as a result of technological improvements. The Government may, at any time during the term of this contract or any extensions thereof, modify the contract to acquire products which are similar to those under the contract and that the Contractor has, or has not, formally announced for marketing purposes. This action is considered to be within the scope of the contract. At the option of the Government, a demonstration of the substitute product may be required. The Government is under no obligation to modify the contract in response to the proposed additions or substitutions.

Questions?

Q&A Now Q&A via email after todays meeting. Any Questions and responses will be shared with all prospective bidders.