Questions_Answers_273FCC23Q0001.pdf

# RFQ Document Section / Page

# / Title Reference Text Question FCC Response

1 Attachment+1_PWS_BD C_Engineering+Support

Section 5 / Page 18

Deliverables Schedule / Incident Response Plan & Breach Response Plan

The Contractor shall provide evidence of its cybersecurity training, an Incident Response Plan, a Breach Response Plan, and evidence of compliance with Privacy Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clauses as outlined in Section 10 of the

PWS.

Will FCC provide cybersecurity training and the associated expenses for the training?

Yes, the cybersecurity training described in PWS Section 10.2 is provided by the FCC, at no cost to the Contractor.

The FCC will provide initial Security Awareness Training prior to granting access to FCC networks and applications.

In addition, the Contractor is responsible for submission of completed, signed computer security forms for each employee prior to that person beginning work on the contract (in accordance with FCC Instruction 1479.4, FCC Cyber Security Program and its associated Information Technology Center (ITC) Cyber Security Policy. These forms should be submitted to the FCC Cyber Security Program Office after the Contractor completes the mandatory FCC Initial Security Awareness Training.

Annual training is provided to all FCC network account holders.

2 Attachment+1_PWS_BD C_Engineering+Support

Section 5 / Page 18

Deliverables Schedule - On- Boarding Documentation

The Contractor shall provide prompt and accurate documentation as part of this contract’s security requirements.

Vendor shall be aware that it takes approximately 10 days for U.S. Citizens to get fully onboarded and cleared through FCC Security Office.

Will FCC provide documentation requirements to be cleared by the FCC security office?

Yes, the FCC COR will provide all documentation requirements.

3 Attachment+1_PWS_BD C_Engineering+Support

Section 5 / Page 18

Deliverables Schedule - On- Boarding Documentation

The vendor shall describe an onboarding approach ensuring their employees will be onboarded and fully cleared by FCC Security Office to start work within 20 days of contract award date.

Should the on-boarding approach be defined based on the FCC security requirements? Does the back office personnel who are not directly involved with the project be cleared by FCC security office?

Please see PWS Section 9.3 and Clause LOCAL-27 in Attachment 4 SF-1449 Terms & Conditions.

The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that all "Core Team" candidates submitted for clearance have the ability to be onboarded and cleared within a reasonable amount of time. If Key Personnel onboarding documentation is submitted by the Contractor to the CO/COR within 2 business days after the award, this will avoid undue delays in the clearance process and the ability to begin work after preliminary adjudication is granted by the FCC Security Office.

The Contractor's responsibility is to submit complete, accurate documentation on-time, unless otherwise agreed.

Any delays incurred by FCC Security will not be the responsibility of the Contractor.

Only the employees that are aligned to labor categories on the contract, and billed directly against the contract, will be subject to the onboarding process.

4 Attachment+1_PWS_BD C_Engineering+Support

Section 5 / Page 18

Deliverables Schedule - On- Boarding Documentation

The Contractor shall provide resumes for all personnel to be staffed on the project, as well as all requested information to support required background investigations in a timely manner.

Does the contracting personnel to be staffed be approved by FCC hiring manager?

Ref PWS 9.4, For all new personnel, throughout the life of the contract, the Contractor must provide the vetted candidate resume to the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) for review and approval prior to personnel selection.

5 Attachment+1_PWS_BD C_Engineering+Support

Section 9.1 / Page

As noted in Section 4.1 Program Management, given the uncertainty regarding the volume and timing of work requirements, the Offeror’s approach to ensuring the availability of qualified support staff is a critical aspect of the Offeror’s overall Technical Approach.

The following sections provide additional information regarding personnel requirements and estimated support requirements.

What is the approximate date of award notification.

What sort of volume is expected for availability of qualified labor?

The anticipated award notification is December 26.

Please refer to the answer to question #7 below and PWS Section 9.2.

6 Attachment+1_PWS_BD C_Engineering+Support

Section 10.2 / Page

The Contractor shall provide evidence that all personnel assigned to work on this contract have completed cybersecurity training and have received and signed Rules of Behavior governing their use of Federal information and/or information systems. The cybersecurity training and Rules of Behavior may be company-provided, subject to review by the FCC, or provided by FCC.

Will FCC be able to provide cybersecurity training or will expenses incurred for the training be compensated by FCC?

Please see answer to Question #1 above.

7 Attachment+3_FCC+BD C+Pricing+Sheet_vF

Total Proposed Price

Currently it shows a total of 13,636 hours needed for the project during the base year. Can we use this assumption for quantity needed for the base year?

Please see PWS Section 9.2 for additional information on the difference between Core Team resources and Surge Support. CLINs 0001-0003 represent the "Core Team" resources to be staffed on a full-time basis (estimated 1,912 hours per year). These three key personnel and estimated 5,736 hours for the base year Core Team are the only definitive requirements at contract award.

As noted in the PWS, "Because much of the workload will be driven by external inquiries, the FCC is unable to forecast with certainty the quantity, frequency, and timing of the various types of analysis that will be required" and therefore CLIN 0004 was established to make the full rate card of labor categories available and orderable at FCC discretion as "Surge Support". Per PWS Section 9.2 "Requirements, if any, for additional surge support will be defined post award based on the actual changes in workload experienced throughout the period of performance."

The hours provided in the pricing sheet for each Labor Category in CLIN 0004 (and 1004 & 2004) therefore are NOT guaranteed hours and are used for price evaluation purposes only as part of the build up of the total evaluated price.

8 Attachment+3_FCC+BD C+Pricing+Sheet_vF

Base Period Total Could you please clarify what is the $200K ceiling amount ? Is it a maximum per employee/year or how you should consider this ceiling?

Ref Combined Synopsis Solicitation pg 3 (c) 4 - Should a Support and Special Projects optional service be exercised, a RFP/SOW/PWS will be sent to the Contractor for pricing at that time. For the purposes of evaluation and the best value tradeoff, the Support and Special Projects CLIN ceiling amount is $200K per year.

9 Combined Synopsis Solicitation / page 2

Q: Which volume would the government prefer vendors include the 11items listed on page 2 of the Combined Synopsis Solicitation?

Include the items in a Cover Letter or Executive Summary

10 Combined Synopsis Solicitation / page 2

Due to two Federal Holidays – Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving, would the Government please consider an extension from 12/2 to 12/16?

The Government will grant an extension for Offers Due to December 09, 2022.

11 Attachment 1 PWS /

Section 9.3 in the PWS states, “Resumes for key personnel shall be submitted by the Offeror with its proposal and will be incorporated into the overall technical evaluation.”

Will the government confirm that Key Personnel resumes do not count in the 30-page limit.

The Key Personnel resumes are excluded from the NTE page count for the Technical Proposal narrative. Such additional information shall be included at the end of the proposal and referenced accordingly in the narrative to make it clear that the narrative does not exceed the page limitations.

12 Attachment 1 PWS / page 18 Deliverables

Section 5 Deliverables notes that a draft PMP to include a) Project Management Plan; b) Staffing Plan; c) Quality Assurance Plan; d) Communication Plan;

e) Training & Documentation Plan should be submitted with the proposal.

To adequately develop quality draft plans (which can be 20 pages per plan), please confirm that this draft PMP (including a-e above) is a separate document apart from the Volume 1 Technical Capability (NTE 30 pages) document.

The draft PMP is excluded from the NTE page count for the Technical Proposal narrative. Such additional information shall be included at the end of the proposal and referenced accordingly in the narrative to make it clear that the narrative does not exceed the page limitations.

13 Attachment 1 PWS /

“Vendor shall be aware that it takes approximately 10 days for U.S. Citizens to get fully onboarded and cleared through FCC Security Office. … The vendor shall describe an onboarding approach ensuring their employees will be onboarded and fully cleared by FCC Security Office to start work within 20 days of contract award date.”

Please clarify that contractor employees can work/charge to the contract during the 20-day onboarding period to complete the security clearance process, attend kickoff meetings, study documentation, and/or conduct planning and management tasks.

The process of filling out onboarding paperwork by the proposed candidate, prior to going through the security clearance process, is not billable to the contract. Once the submitted candidate is successfully cleared through preliminary adjudication by FCC Security, a "start work" date will be established between the Contractor and the FCC

COR.

Once the Project Manager has been onboarded, onboarding-related charges to onboard the other staff members may be charged in a reasonable manner by the PM within his role to staff/manage the effort. Part of the scope of the PM's duties in the PWS and Labor Category description is: "Responsible for all aspects of project and contract management, project planning, staffing, cost, schedule, performance, deliverables, and quality control."

Please note that this is not the same as an employee charging hours for his own onboarding paperwork (which they cannot do because they haven't "started work").

The Kickoff meeting will be scheduled at a mutually agreed-upon time once the PM is onboarded and it's determined that the right amount of core team members are also onboarded to start work.

14 Attachment 1 PWS / page 7 / PWS 3 Scope

Please elaborate on the work to support “workload planning and management.”

Please see PWS Sections 4.1.1 & 9.2 for additional information. As noted in PWS section 9.2, "Because much of the workload will be driven by external inquiries, the FCC is unable to forecast with certainty the quantity, frequency, and timing of the various types of analysis that will be required". Due to this uncertainty, as noted in PWS 4.1.1 "the Contractor shall support the intake, review, assessment, and triage of the BDC inquiries...[to] assist FCC personnel in prioritizing, sequencing, and executing the required analyses and reporting within specified timeframes". This "workload planning" refers to activities including but not limited to forecasting workload, creating processes to manage and resolve inquiries in a timely manner, ensuring sufficient staffing, establishing and meeting agreed upon targets, and all other activities related to planning and managing the work specified in the PWS.

Attachment 1 PWS / page 14 / PWS 4.2.2.c Audit Process Support

As per the audit process support requirement, the contractor is to review collected OTG data and support audits, field surveys etc. Please clarify that collecting OTG or conducting other field surveys are not part of the contract and these will be conducted by third party vendors.

Actual collection of OTG field test data is not part of the scope of this contract and will be conducted if needed by third party vendors.

Attachment 1 PWS / page 20 / PWS 7 Place of Performance

Section 7 Place of Performance states that “the services specific in this performance work statement shall be performed primarily at the contractor facility (or facilities).”

With many companies shifting to a remote work environment, please confirm that staff working on this contract may work from their personal residence.

Personnel may perform work from a home office in the United States provided that the remote work space in compliance with FCC's Security requirements outlined in the contract's LOCAL-27 clause. The contractors are expected to work during Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) FCC core hours.

Work may be required periodically at FCC Headquarters, 45 L Street, NE, Washington, DC 20554 or other FCC facilities at the direction of the Contracting Officer Representative (COR). In the event that work is required onsite at government facilities and would require the Contractor to incur travel costs, the FCC will work with the Contractor regarding the process for reimbursing approved travel expenses. No travel costs shall be reimbursed without prior approval in writing by the COR.

17 Attachment 1 PWS / pages 9-10 / PWS 4.2.1

Please describe the staffing expectations during the twice a year Coverage Map Review. Does the FCC have to complete the analysis of all reviews within a certain timeframe? Does the FCC foresee a surge in contract FTEs during this period? Which labor categories does the FCC anticipate these surge resources filling?

Please see answer to Question 14

18 Attachment 3 FCC BDC Pricing Sheet

Many of the surge support labor categories have hours less than full time for an entire period of performance. As we learned from the PWS that “As various challenge, verification, audit, and other BDC processes are rolled-out for the first time, there will necessarily be a period of process review and refinement that may require additional types of related analysis and advisory support.”, can the FCC provide their best guess for the frequency of these requests and a typical duration a surge resource may be needed?

Please see answer to Question #7 and #19.

The hours provided for surge support in the pricing sheet are for pricing evaluation purposes only and do not represent any real or anticipated needs at this time. As noted in PWS Section 9.2, requirements beyond the Core Team can not be estimated at this time. Surge resource needs, if any, will be driven by the timing and number of actual inquiries received and surge resources may be requested on a short-term basis or may added on a full-time/long-term basis once a specific need is clearly established.

19 Attachment 1 PWS /

How long does the govt anticipate a single process support task to take to complete in business days for each of the following: Link Budget Review and QC, Propagation Model Review and QC, Verification Process, Challenge Process, Audit Process, and Crowdsource Process?

This information is not available at this time. As noted in PWS Section 9.2 "The BDC verification, challenge, audit, and other processes described in this PWS are being implemented for the first time, and therefore historical data are not available regarding these support requirements. Because much of the workload will be driven by external inquiries, the FCC is unable to forecast with certainty the quantity, frequency, and timing of the various types of analysis that will be required." The FCC is seeking a partner capable of increasing (or decreasing) the number of qualified resources over time as processes become more defined and total workload timing, frequency and duration become more clear based on experience.

20 Attachment 1 PWS / page 15 / PWS 4.2.2.d

The PWS states: “Assessment of areas identified for further review by automatic process."

Is this automatic process and the tools involved in its implementation supplied by the FCC, or does it need to be developed by the bidder?

Supplied by FCC- the already-functioning BDC system has a number of automated features and tools that will identify areas for further review. These automatic identifiers are not an aspect to be developed by bidders in this project.

21 Attachment 1 PWS / general question

Will all hardware or software (Propagation Modeling Tool, Atoll, and other GIS tools, etc.) be provided by the government? Please confirm that the FCC will provide all software, hardware, document repository systems, laptops, Propagation Modeling Tools (PMT), geographic databases, and other modeling and statistical analysis tools, and that the offeror does not propose nor include these in the technical and price response.

The Offeror should not include costs for hardware, software or data in their proposal response.

The primary tools will be Forsk Atoll and ArcGIS. Propagation Modeling Tools (PMT) and GIS software including geodata will be provided by the Government. It is expected that the contractor will have recent computers/laptops and broadband internet connections to perform the work. All other requirements for government furnished property, equipment, or information, if any, will be determined by FCC post-award and discussions will be held with the contractor to determine who may provide them.

Attachment 1 PWS / page 7 / PWS 4.1.1 Assessment & Triage of BDC Inquiries

Please confirm that the intake/tracking system for the Task 1 tasks for “review, assessment, and triage of the BDC inquiries from FCC staff and other sources identified by the FCC” and “higher-tier technical assistance with BDC inquiries” will be the Broadband Data Collection System (https://bdc.fcc.gov), the Broadband Data Collection Help Center System (https://help.bdc.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new), or the system used by the BDC Help Center, or some other FCC provided system. And therefore, the Offeror does not have to propose a system in our technical and price responses.

If an FCC provided system is to be used, please provide the platform this system is built on and confirm that the system will be used to track and measure Task 1 Support work such that metrics can be easily generated from the system, such as time to close an inquiry.

The Offeror is not required to propose a system. The Offeror must propose how to perform the services for Task 1.

Contractor is expected to utilize our virtual desktop infrastructure environment to perform daily work.

Attachment 1 PWS / page 9 / PWS 4.2 TASK

2: FIXED WIRELESS AND

MOBILE WIRELESS

ENGINEERING SUPPORT

Please confirm that the intake system for all Task 2 and 3 Process Support work (Coverage Map Data Reviews, Verification Inquires, Challenge Submissions, Crowdsource Data Submissions, and Audit Requests will be the Broadband Data Collection System (https://bdc.fcc.gov), the Broadband Data Collection Help Center System (https://help.bdc.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new), or the system used by the BDC Help Center, or some other FCC provided system. And therefore, the Offeror does not have to propose a system in our technical and price responses.

If an FCC provided system is to be used, please provide the platform this system is built on and confirm that the system will be used to track and measure Task 2 and Task 3 Process Support work such that metrics can be easily generated from the system, such as time to complete a process.

The Offeror is not required to propose a system. The Offeror must propose how to perform the services for Task 2 and 3. Contractor is expected to utilize our virtual desktop infrastructure environment to perform daily work.

Attachment 1_PWS_BDC_Engineerin g Support.pdf”, page 8, Section 4.1.2 Program / Project Management & Administration.

What does the FCC value as relevant KPIs that should be included in the Offeror’s Quality Assurance Plan for the provision of the Engineering and Consulting Support Services being solicited under this RFQ? Can the FCC provide some examples?

The contractor is invited to recommend appropriate KPIs in the Quality Assurance Plan and present them. The FCC can discuss with the Contractor post-award.

Attachment 1_PWS_BDC_Engineerin g Support.pdf”, page 11, Section 4.2.2.a Verification Process Support.

If a wireless provider utilizes another propagation modeling tool besides Forsk’s Atoll/Naos (such as InfoVista’s Mentum Planet or Teoco’s Asset) to produce their coverage maps, would the FCC also have a copy of those tools that they can provide to the Contractor so that the Contractor can try to reproduce the same results? Or must all wireless providers match the results produced by Forsk’s Atoll/Naos product?

The FCC can provide to the Contractor the following information described in the attached data specifications that each provider is required to submit in the BDC system: https://us-fcc.app.box.com/v/bdc-availability-spec. Each wireless provider chooses the propagation modeling tool it uses to create its maps which why the FCC requires specific information regarding the provider's modeling tools.

Attachment 1_PWS_BDC_Engineerin g Support.pdf”, page 11, Section 4.2.2.a Verification Process Support.

Does the FCC expect to receive clutter, digital terrain, and other propagation modeling information from wireless providers in the formats of the tools that they utilize? If so, would the FCC expect the Contractor to be able to convert these datasets into the formats compatible with the Forsk Atoll/Naos software? Does Forsk provide these conversion tools as part of their software package? If not, will the FCC provide the data structure that Forsk uses for its digital clutter and terrain data so that the Contractor can perform the conversion work with their own toolset?

The FCC can provide to the Contractor the following information described in the attached data specifications that each provider is required to submit in the BDC system: https://us-fcc.app.box.com/v/bdc-availability-spec

Attachment 1_PWS_BDC_Engineerin g Support.pdf”, page 11, Section 4.2.2.a Verification Process Support.

Does the FCC provide its own standard or methodology for correlating measurement data (either obtained through crowdsourcing or drive testing) with the prediction results produced by the PMT? The correlation method between measurements and predictions and the corresponding accuracy can vary not only from provider to provider but can also vary depending on the software tool utilized.

We will utilize Forsk Atoll for correlating speed test data and the PMT predictions. Please see the specifications for the mobile speed test data: https://us-fcc.app.box.com/v/bdc-mobile-speedtest-spec

Attachment 1_PWS_BDC_Engineerin g Support.pdf”, page 20, Section 9.1 Standardized Labor Categories.

Does the FCC require the crosswalk between the offeror’s personnel labor categories and the Standardized Labor Categories defined in Attachment 2 of the PWS to be included in the Technical Approach section of Volume 1 or in the proposal included in Volume 2?

The crosswalk may be provided in Volume 2: Price.

Attachment 1_PWS_BDC_Engineerin g Support.pdf”, page 20, Section 9.1 Standardized Labor Categories.

PWS 9.1 refers to the minimum requirements for the standardized Labor Categories for this project as being included in Attachment 1 to the PWS.

The minimum requirements for the standardized Labor Categories are defined in “Attachment 2_Labor Categories_Final.docx”.

Did the FCC mean to refer to the Labor Categories as defined in Attachment 2?

Yes, this refers to the Labor Categories as defined in Attachment 2, file name "Attachment 2_Labor Categories_Final.docx" in the solicitation.