C01 JA_Redacted.pdf

Continuation of External Paging Services Control Number: VA-26-00037210

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics

Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a sole-source Firm-Fixed Price contract for renewal to continue our wireless messaging pager and beeper services and maintenance at 81 Veteran Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC). The proposed source for this action is SPOK, 3000 Technology Dr Ste 400, Plano, TX 75074-7488.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Information and Technology, End User Operations (EUO) have a requirement to renew the existing wireless messaging pager and beeper services, ensuring that all current services and functionality are maintained for 81 VAMCs in the states of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. EUO requires continued lease and support services for wireless messaging pagers and beepers to maintain uninterrupted communication capabilities essential to mission operations. The requirement includes unlimited nationwide wireless usage plans for all leased devices, along with comprehensive account management support to ensure continuous operational readiness. This support encompasses equipment additions, exchanges, cancellations, and general account inquiries necessary to sustain continuous operational readiness. EUO additionally requires access to a secure, web-based customer service platform to implement feature changes; process administrative actions such as additions, deletions, and moves; customize, generate, and retrieve system reports; report service outages; and conduct troubleshooting activities necessary to ensure reliable and uninterrupted service delivery. The Contractor shall provide wireless messaging pager and beeper services, including the leasing of one-way and two-way messaging devicesand wireless information services. The Contractor shall provide maintenance and replacement of lost or damaged devices, as well as shipping and return support for all deployed equipment. Maintenance shall include repairs to base station transmitters, radio towers, and any other hardware contributing to service outages. The period of performance for this effort shall be a 12-month base period with two 12-month option periods, if exercised.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1) as implemented by the Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul (RFO) VA Deviation 6.103-1, entitled “Only One

Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements”.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this action is SPOK, 3000 Technology Dr Ste 400, Plano, TX 75074-7488.

During the previous fiscal year, EUO, researched a sourcing concept, that would have the outcome of an enterprise procurement to meet the agency’s requirements for commercial wireless messaging services, including pagers and beepers. The technical concept requires commercial wireless messaging providers, specifically for pager and beeper services, to utilize their own native infrastructure to deliver service. The demand for commercial wireless messaging pager/beeper has not been matched by industry technological innovation, that provides native infrastructure independent of site-specific add-ons or service integrations readiness. Therefore, the VA OI&T EUO organization, responsible for sustaining the Agency’s existing commercial wireless messaging pager and beeper coverage and capabilities has conducted market research and determined that renewing these services with the incumbent provider will prevent disruption to current critical healthcare operations.

Based on market research described in Section 8 of this justification, no additional sources were identified that can meet the Government’s requirements.

It has been determined that only SPOK can provide the required services. For the coverage area of this requirement, SPOK is the sole provider capable of ensuring seamless renewal, continued use, and maintenance of deployed pagers at the VAMCs, as well as continuity of all required maintenance and pager support services. No other vendor can test and turn up new services without first conducting extensive testing at the locations to determine if a signal strength could penetrate structures and vegetation at all locations, which would require a minimum of 60 to 90 days to provide an overall evaluation. Additionally, based on the evaluation results and due to proprietary constraints, any other vendor would require the use of its specific equipment and infrastructure, as opposed to the native infrastructure, which would add significant duplicative costs.

To pivot to any alternative vendor, the estimated duplicative costs of approximately $1 million would be required to build new infrastructure and reprocure hardware. This development effort would further add to the timeframe to turn on the replacement beeper services. These estimated duplicative costs would not be recovered through competition. The estimates were based on data from previous acquisition history and similar procurements for comparable requirements. More critically, during this period, the VA would lose essential services, resulting in communication disruptions that support medical staff in situations where other forms of communication cannot reach healthcare professionals. Due to the type of telecommunication services, to introduce another vendor, to test and provide new services would provide for an unacceptable high level of risk and serious negative impacts to patient care and health of Veterans.

No source, other than SPOK, can provide the required beeper solution and service at the required locations. Only the incumbent has access to the proprietary hardware, software, and frequencies necessary to provide this coverage. Any other source would require access to this specialized equipment, proprietary software, and SPOK, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) network to identify and resolve potential issues with the deployed solution. For instance, in the event of a system error, should a source not have access to the specialized equipment, proprietary software, and the OEM’s network, that source would be unable to perform root cause analysis and successfully mitigate any potential issues may arise. Further, the vendor would be unable to test the network to ensure that any software patch or change to the system was successful, and that the beepers are able to receive and send messages.

Additionally, without access to the OEM’s proprietary source code and software updates provided by the OEM, regular and preventative pushes could not be deployed. This increases the risk that the network will not be operating within the required Software License Agreement requirements.

Failure to procure the services as described above will hinder medical care provided to the Veterans being seen at these 81 VAMCs. Specifically, without these services, approximately 20,000 employees would be without beeper service/messaging capabilities that directly support current VA workflows. The loss of these beeper capabilities would hinder the Agency’s mission to provide critical healthcare and support services to the Veteran. Therefore, only the OEM can provide this required beeper service for the 81 VAMC’s.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research Section 8 of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities website (www.sam.gov) in accordance with RFO VA Deviation 5.301.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government is currently conducting vendor showcase demonstrations with industry to determine the next generation for clinical communications capabilities. The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed.

8. Market Research: The Government’s technical experts conducted a market analysis in December 2025 for modernized Commercial Off-the-Shelf leased wireless messaging pager and beeper services. In addition, a request for Information (RFI) 36C10B26Q0145 was issued in January 2026 to the following Government Points of Entry Contracting Opportunities, General Services Administration ebuy, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement, to ascertain if there were any other sources that could meet the Government’s requirements as outlined in Section 5 of this Justification. Responses to the RFI were received from LotusUSA and

American Messaging Services. Although LotusUSA and American Messaging Services offer similar commercial solutions, neither vendor can integrate with the existing infrastructure. In addition neither vendor can provide nationwide coverage required to operate and maintain the existing services across all locations without incurring the significant duplication of time and cost as described above. Futhermore, to confirm whether there are authorized resellers for this effort, the Contract Specialist contacted SPOK directly and requested a list of its authorized resellers. Based on SPOK’s response, WidePoint Integrated Solution Corp (WidePoint) is the only authorized reseller of SPOK paging services, offering services through the U.S. Navy Spiral 4 contract. If VA procures services through WidePoint, all customer service requests must be routed exclusively through WidePoint, eliminating direct access to SPOK’s support channels, including Regional Operations Managers and VA existing My Account platform. This change would result in the loss of current service requirements such as account management, feature changes, reporting, outage troubleshooting, and equipment exchanges. Additionally, VA may be required to surrender existing pagers and associated numbers, transition to new devices, and move from unlimited usage plans to a 5,000-call plan per device. Free ground shipping and SPOK’s custom reporting would also be discontinued.

WidePoint does not meet VA’s operational requirements, and using another vendor would significantly impact account management functionality, increase costs, and reduce service convenience. Based on the information provided and in response to the RFI, VA determined that only SPOK could provide the coverage areas identified in this requirement to maintain the existing commercial beeper footprint without the estimated duplication of cost and time as detailed in Section 5 of this justification. An update to the RFI was posted in February 2026 to the Contracting Opportunities, GSA, and NASA SEWP websites to notify all interested parties that the VA had determined SPOK to be the only vendor capable of meeting the agency’s functional requirements and to communicate the VA’s intended acquisition strategy.

9. Other Facts: None

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on comparison of the proposed action to historical prices paid, as well as a comparison to commercial list pricing, and the Independent Government Cost Estimate. Further price analysis will be conducted and subsequent negotiations held as necessary.

Additionally, price discounts will be sought.

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Advocate for Competition Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition for renewal to continue our wireless messaging pager and beeper services and maintenance at 81 Veteran Affairs Medical Centers, on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the statutory authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition