FAR 13.5 - Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition - LS_Redacted.pdf

This is a Sole Source Justification under FAR 13.5 for the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) procurement of an IEEE Electronic Library (IEL) upgrade. The document justifies awarding a sole-source contract to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for access to the IEEE Electronic Library, which provides unlimited desktop access to over 6,300,000 IEEE Journal, Magazine, Transaction, IEEE and IET Conference Proceedings articles and Active IEEE Standards dating back to 1884.

The contract includes a base period from 12/15/2024 through 12/31/2025, plus four one-year option periods extending through 12/31/2029. The FCC posted a pre-solicitation notice on SAM.gov (Notice ID: 273FCC25QR0004) on December 4, 2024, which closed on December 9, 2024, with no capability statements received. Market research identified two other companies (McGraw Hill, LLC and The Association for Computing Machinery) but determined their offerings were not comparable to IEEE's exclusive content and industry standards that are crucial for FCC's regulatory work in telecommunications, broadcasting, and technology standards. The justification cites IEEE's unique qualifications as the sole provider of essential technical content and industry standards like IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) that directly impact FCC's regulatory oversight.