Class_J&A_LMRs.pdf

Justification and Approval (J&A) for Other Than Full and Open Competition

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

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I. Contracting Activity.

Department of the Air Force, Air Force Installation Contracting Agency, Policy and Training Division (AFICA/KPP), 3515 S. General McMullen, San Antonio, TX 78226

II. Nature and/or description of the action being processed.

The USAF has a brand name requirement to procure only Motorola Solutions (Motorola) or Harris Corporation (Harris) Land Mobile Radio (LMR) equipment to support the sustainment and technical refresh of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Project 25 (P25) compliant end-user radios, ancillary equipment and software for the remainder of fiscal year (FY)18 through 30 Nov 18. This Class J&A will support multiple FY end contracts (new) throughout AFICA both CONUS and OCONUS locations.

III. Description of supplies/services required to meet agency needs.

This Class J&A covers all USAF LMR purchases from the effective date of this Class J&A through 30 Nov 18. Radio purchases during this time are estimated to be ), including LMR accessories and associated installation services. Incidental installation services are commonly included with radio purchases, making-up around % of each purchase, and are already included in the per-radio estimates and total (est.

). Approval of this Class J&A will eliminate the redundancy of each Contracting Activity preparing and approving individual J&As resulting in more efficient, effective and timely mission support for sole source Motorola and Harris LMR requirements for the time period outlined above. It is noted that a Government-wide Tactical Communications (TacCom-II) contract is anticipated for award by 30 Nov 18, and is anticipated to be a mandatory source for the USAF LMRs for purchases beyond 30 Nov 2018.

IV. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1(a)(2) and required by FAR 6.303-2(b)(4), when supplies or services required by the agency are available from a limited number of responsible sources and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, full and open competition need not be provided for.

V. Demonstration that the contractor's unique qualifications or nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited above (applicability of authority).

P25 standards are a suite of standards for digital radio communications for use by federal, state, and local public safety organizations in North America to enable them to communicate with other agencies and mutual aid response teams in emergencies. Since 1989, use of the P25 standards has been mandatory for the United States Federal Government radio equipment; therefore, each USAF LMR trunking system is required to meet P25 standards. Trunking systems are integral to the use of LMRs because it enables AF radio users to share communication lines or frequencies instead of dedicating individual frequencies for each user. According to the P25 website, 14 radio manufacturers currently produce P25 compliant radios. Despite the common P25 standards required for USAF LMRs, several complicating factors exist that preclude allowing full-and-open competition for USAF LMR purchases.

Unique and Patented Features:

Patented technology and associated vendor-specific features have created a significant barrier to competition for AF LMRs. Both Motorola and Harris each have 100-plus unique patents for LMR-related technology. Motorola and Harris both have advanced features that are now functional standards of practice that are available on other vendors' equipment. However, several key features of Motorola or Harris that enhance mission readiness are not available on competing vendor's equipment. A detailed list of unique and patented features available only on Motorola equipment was provided by Motorola during a capability brief to the AF-Wide Enterprise LMR acquisition team. Although Harris has not provided a similar list of patented/unique features, multiple J&As have been approved across the AF due to the unique patented features of Harris LMRs in support of AF Special Operations, Security Forces, and other USAF requirement activities. A discussion of these features follows.

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Feature-division in LMRs has made each product truly unique, causing there to be only one source capable of providing a specific feature-set to USAF customers. Customer needs for specific LMR features are based-on specialized missions at each base or deployed environment and can only be determined by the customer's LMR technical advisors.

The environment for USAF LMRs is such that most radio purchases must be supported by a brand-name or sole-source J&A to meet customer requirements.

Trunking-Integrated Features:

There is no guarantee nor precedent that third-party equipment will be compatible with the current infrastructure since these features are not standardized by the P25 architecture. Two of the most prominent examples of these features are the ability to perform an Over-the-Air Rekey (OTAR) and Over-the-Air Programming (OTAP). These two functions have only been proven to work on the same-vendor systems and are of critical importance since it saves the manpower and associated costs of manually updating several thousand radios several times per year. Market research indicates that the majority of bases have either Motorola or Harris trunking systems. Therefore, bases must purchase radios from the same vendor as their trunking system. Because the overwhelming majority of bases uses one of these two trunking systems, and has one of these two LMR brands, any purchase of other than these two brands degrades mission readiness and increases cost of operation and waste of installed resources due to needless replacement. For those bases that are not now using either Motorola or Harris LMRs or their related trunking systems, it is in the best interest of the Air Force to allow those communications squadrons to buy one of these two systems by brand name in order to maximize standardization across the Air Force, creating further savings in training, maintenance, inventory, and replacement due to interoperability.

Deployed Requirements:

OCONUS bases and commonly deployed units often have to procure communications equipment that is the same as our allies and mission partners in the region.

Only Harris radios could be used in this case because, he Government has invested significant funds in equipping, provisioning, and training all .” Using a separate brand of radios in this case may cause significant operational issues and duplication in cost from procuring additional spares, retraining US troops and partner nations, and integrating another brand of equipment with

In another case, a 2015 letter was received from the requesting that only Motorola APX radios be purchased for their . The letter stated, “The [Harris] PRC-152 radios currently being procured are not effective in coalition environments due to the embedded Type 1 encryption in these devices. This prohibits the issuing of these radios to coalition personnel for use when conducting

… The [Motorola] APX uses type 3 commercial encryption so that it fulfills current security requirements and may also be issued to coalition personnel operating on .” Only Motorola radios meet the level 3 embedded encryption requirements for . Similar to other unique radio features, brand name Motorola and Harris radio requirements are common for meeting the needs of deployed/OCONUS USAF personnel.

Homogeneity:

It is in the USAF's best interest to use one brand of radios at each AF base. Implementing standardized equipment across the Air Force permits immediate software and hardware interoperability should a failure occur, increasing security, readiness, reliability, communications effectiveness and maintenance costs. Standardization also prevents specialized training for different LMRs for the same type of device failure. USAF Communications Squadrons are typically not trained on any equipment other than Motorola and Harris and the base users do not have the required software and hardware to bring a different vendor product on line. To do so would have costs associated with the change to replace preexisting radios and the corresponding trunking system elements, adding unnecessary expenditures. Holding and maintaining spares, radio accessories, and software from multiple (up to 14) P25 radio manufacturers has proven untenable and to continue would lead to substantial duplications of supply and manpower costs.

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IX. Any other facts supporting the use of Other Than Full and Open Competition.

None.

XI. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before making subsequent acquisitions for the supplies or services required.

The AF intends to use the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) TacCom-II contract for future procurements of LMRs. Although 60-plus vendors are anticipated to be on this contract vehicle, the same factors for limiting of competition for USAF radio purchases will still exist. At that time, a new Class J&A will cover purchases for those purposes. However, once the contract is awarded, the USAF will maximize competition for USAF LMR purchases when applicable while still providing customers the ability to purchase sole-source LMR equipment.

In accordance with FAR 6.305, when using FAR 6.302-1 as the basis for limiting competition, the justification shall be made publicly available within 14 days after contract award. This justification shall be made publicly available via the Federal Business Opportunities Website (www.fbo.gov). Responses received, from capable and interested vendors, as a result of that posting will be considered for future USAF LMR efforts.

XII. Certification by the Contracting Officer.

The Contracting Officer's signature on the Justification Review Document provides evidence that he has determined this document to be both accurate and complete to the best of his knowledge and belief (FAR 6.303-2(b)(12)).

XIII. Certification by the technical/requirements personnel.

As evidenced by their signatures on the Justification Review Document, the technical and/or requirements personnel have certified that any supporting data contained herein, which is their responsibility, is both accurate and complete (FAR 6.303-2(c)).