CSS 1333ND26QNB670129.pdf

CLASSIFICATION CODE: D - IT and Telecom - Information Technology and Telecommunications

TITLE: 5G Open Radio Access Network Time-Sensitive Networking Support Services

SOLICITATION NUMBER: 1333ND26QNB670129

RESPONSE DATE: 04/02/2026

CONTACT POINTS: Robert Cowins, Contract Specialist, (301) 975-8335

Hing Pan Wong, Contracting Officer, (301) 975-6289

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a requirement for the procurement of 5G Open Radio Access Network Time-Sensitive Networking Support Services to be utilized by the Communication Technology Laboratory (CTL) at NIST, Gaithersburg, MD campus.

(I) This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial products or commercial services prepared in accordance with the format in part 12 - Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotations are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

(II) The solicitation number is 1333ND26QNB670129 and this solicitation is a Request for Quotation (RFQ). This acquisition is being solicited as 100% small business set-aside.

(III) The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2025-06 Published August 27, 2025 and Effective October 1, 2025 and the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), supplemented by Department of Commerce Acquisition Policy.

(IV) The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 541690 - Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services, with a small business size standard of 19 million in annual revenue.

(V) All offerors shall provide a firm-fixed-price quotation for the following line item(s):

Contract Line Item Number (CLIN)

QTY UNIT UNIT

PRICE

APPLICABLE

DISCOUNTS

TOTAL

CLIN 0001 – 5G Open Radio Access Network Time-Sensitive Networking Support

1 LO

TOTAL:

(VI) The requirements for the line items to be acquired above are in the attached Statement of Work document.

Attachment 1: Statement of Work: 5G Open Radio Access Network Time-Sensitive Networking Support Services

Attachment 2: Applicable Provisions and Clauses

(VII) Date(s) and place(s) of delivery and acceptance and FOB point are required in accordance with the attached Statement of Work document.

(VIII) Interested parties must possess an ACTIVE registration in the System for Award Management system, www.SAM.gov, when submitting a quotation and shall continue to be registered until time of award, during performance, and through final payment of any contract resulting from this solicitation.

The Contracting Officer shall confirm that quoters have an “active” registration at the www.sam.gov website upon receipt of the quotation. If the SAM.gov registration is not active, the quotation will not be considered for award

(IX) The provision at FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors—Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026), applies to this acquisition. See Addendum to FAR 52.212-1 below.

Addendum to FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026):

DUE DATE FOR QUOTATIONS

Offerors shall submit their electronic quotations, via email, so that NIST receives them not later than 12:00pm Eastern Time, 04/02/2026. E-mail quotations shall be submitted directly to the Contract Specialist at robert.cowins@nist.gov.

Please reference the RFQ number in the subject line of all email communications. Quotations shall not be deemed received by the Government until the quotation is received in the e-mail inbox set forth above.

INQUIRIES:

Offerors must submit all questions concerning this solicitation in writing to both the Contract Specialist robert.cowins@nist.gov. Questions should be received no later than 03/21/2026. All responses to timely submitted questions, will be made in writing, without identification of the questioner, and will be included in an amendment to the solicitation. Even if provided in other form, only the responses included in the amendment to the solicitation will be deemed as the Government’s formal response and govern performance of the contract.

QUOTATION PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:

All quotations shall conform to solicitation provisions/clauses and be prepared in accordance with this section. The quotation shall be clearly and concisely written as well as be neat and logically assembled. All pages of the quotation shall be appropriately numbered.

The Quoter’s quotation shall be clearly divided into the following distinct volumes:

mailto:robert.cowins@nist.gov mailto:robert.cowins@nist.gov

Volume I – Technical Quotation Volume II – Price Quotation

Volume I - Technical Quotation:

The Offeror shall submit one (1) copy of their technical quotation, electronically, via E-mail to the Contract Specialist identified above. The technical quotation shall address the following:

Technical Capability:

The offeror shall submit technical approach and capability documentation which may include a narrative, charts, graphs, tables, drawings, product / service literature, and as applicable, demonstrated authority to provide the necessary items and perform the required services identified in the Statement of Work/Specifications document (Attachment 1). The documentation shall clearly describe, in sufficient detail, the vendor's authority, proposed items, resources and methods to successfully fulfill the requirements including specifications, performance capability requirements, delivery schedules, warranties, and all service requirements. The submission shall clearly identify each line item above. The submission must demonstrate that the proposed system meets or exceeds each minimum requirement described within the attached statement of work document by providing a citation between the statement of work paragraph and the relevant section of the technical description or product literature. The offeror must not simply state they will meet or exceed the requirement; evidence must be provided. If applicable, evidence that the quoter is authorized by the manufacturer to provide the item(s) in the quotation shall be included.

Past Performance:

The offeror shall submit up to [XX] examples of relevant past performance performed within the last 3 to 5 years. Examples should be of work similar in scope, size and complexity to this requirement. The description of each reference described in this section shall not exceed one single-sided page. For each of the contracts, the quoter shall provide the following information:

• Contract number

• Client’s name and address

• Total contract value

• Period of performance

• Identification of role played by quoter (i.e., Prime Contractor, Subcontractor, etc.)

• Narrative describing the requirement and its relevance to the current requirement

• Name of contracting officer or point of contact, telephone number and e-mail address

The quoter is encouraged to focus on prior projects encompassing the same RFQ requirements and describe how these requirements were specifically supported by the quoter. The quoter may use prior experiences in which they served as a prime contractor or subcontractor; however, past performance as a prime contractor may instill higher confidence.

Basis of Award

Evaluation Factors

Award shall be made to the offeror whose quotation offers the best value to the Government price and other factors considered. The Government will evaluate quotations based on the following evaluation criteria listed in descending order of importance: 1) Technical Capability 2) Technical Key Personnel, 3) Past Performance, and 4) Price. All non-price factors, individually and when combined, are more important than price.

Technical Capability: The government will evaluate the extent to which the offeror has demonstrated the technical capability to successfully perform these services, and demonstrated a feasible technical approach to successfully perform and manage the required tasks while ensuring that all deliverable schedule requirements are met.

Technical Key Personnel:

The Government will evaluate the key personnel proposed by the offeror for the extent to which they are qualified to efficiently and effectively address the requirements in the Statement of Work. The Government will consider the extent to which the proposed key personnel meets or exceeds the minimum qualifications identified in the Statement of Work, as well as the qualifications “preference” identified in the Statement of Work. Greater consideration will be given to key personnel that exceed the specific minimum qualification requirements and/or meet the key personnel preference identified in the Statement of Work.

Past Performance: The Government will evaluate the Offeror's past performance information and, if appropriate, its proposed subcontractors' past performance to determine its relevance to the current requirement and the extent to which it demonstrates that the offeror has successfully completed relevant contracts in the past three years. In assessing the offeror's past performance information, NIST will evaluate, as appropriate, successful performance of contract requirements, quality and timeliness of delivery of goods and services, cost management, communications between contracting parties, proactive management and customer satisfaction. Evaluation of this factor will be based on information contained in the technical portion of the quotation and information provided by references. The Government will evaluate past performance information by contacting appropriate references, including NIST references, if applicable. The Government may also consider other available information in evaluating the Offeror’s past performance. The Government will assign a neutral rating if the offeror has no relevant past performance information.

NOTE -- If an offeror does not have a history of relevant contract experience, or if past performance information is not available, the offeror will receive a neutral past performance rating; however, an offeror without a history of relevant experience may receive a lowered rating for the Experience Factor.

Price: The Government will evaluate price for reasonableness.

Past Performance, Experience, and Price shall not be evaluated on quotations that are determined technically unacceptable under the Technical Capability evaluation factor.

Volume II - Price Quotation:

The offeror shall submit one (1) copy of their entire quotation, electronically, via E-mail to the Contract Specialist identified above. The price quotation shall address, at minimum, the following information.

a) The solicitation number

b) The name, phone number, and email address of the quoter's/contractor’s point of contact;

c) Unique Entity Identifier # for quoter's/contractor’s active SAM.Gov registration.

d) A firm fixed price for each required line item, including a unit price and total amount where applicable, and the aggregate quoted firm fixed price for the requirement. Where the Government has identified a line item as requiring a Not to Exceed price, quoters shall comply with this.

e) If applicable, Shipping and Delivery costs must be included in the quotation either as a separate line item or contained in the total price of the quote. The quotation shall include a total firm fixed price for the requirement that includes all shipping/delivery costs

f) Any applicable discount terms.

Volume III – Terms and Conditions:

The offeror shall review the provision and clauses attachment and complete any required information as record via a separate volume response to this solicitation.

Note: System updates may lag policy updates. The System for Award Management (SAM) may continue to require entities to complete representations based on provisions that are not included in this solicitation. Contracting officers will rely on representations from offers based on provisions in the solicitation. Entities are not required to, nor are they able to, update their entity registration to remove these representations in SAM.

Acceptance of Terms and Conditions:

If the contractor objects to any of the terms and conditions contained in this solicitation, the contractor shall state "The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document with the exception, deletion, or addition of the following:" [Contractor shall list exception(s) and rationale for the exception(s)]. It is the sole responsibility of the contractor to identify in their quotation any exceptions to the terms and conditions of the solicitation. If the contractor does not include such a statement, the submission of a quotation in response to this solicitation will be regarded as the Contractor's acceptance of the Government's terms and conditions for inclusion into the resultant purchase order (PO).

Note: This procurement is not being conducted under the GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program or another Government-Wide Area Contract (GWAC). If a quoter submits a quotation based upon an FSS or GWAC contract, the Government will accept the proposed price. However, the terms and conditions stated herein will be included in any resultant purchase order, not the terms and conditions of the Quoter’s FSS or GWAC contract, and the statement required above shall be included in the quotation.

FAR 52.212-2 Evaluation- Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026)

(a) Evaluation factors. The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible Offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors will be used to evaluate offers:

The Government intends to award a single firm fixed price purchase order (PO) from this solicitation utilizing simplified acquisitions procedures in accordance with FAR part 12 of the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul. The Government reserves the right not to award a PO and to make an award without discussions based solely upon initial quotes.

(b) Options (if applicable). The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced. The evaluation of options does not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

(c) Notice of award. A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer furnished to the successful Offeror within the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer’s specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.

(End of provision)