GSM-O 22 Oct 2010 Q As.doc

The Government’s response to Question #301 is hereby revised as follows:

QUESTION #301: Reference ATT-1 PWS, 6.2.2(6), Page 18. Please provide the current SLAs with other service providers.

ANSWER #301: The Government has separate negotiated SLAs in place for each and every access circuit in our inventory. At this time, a comprehensive listing of what is in place today cannot be provided. The GSM-O vendor is expected to maintain the DISN to meet the SLAs listed in the PWS. The SLAs listed in the PWS and other documentation are being met by the government/contractor team today and the GSM-O vendor is expected to meet the same standard. This responsibility extends to identifying outages in other vendor provided infrastructure, notifying the vendor of the outage, and leading restoration of the DISN with those vendors who are also expected to meet their SLAs. These outages will be included in the SLAs that the GSM-O vendor is expected to meet.

QUESTION #379: Reference DRFP, B.3.b: DRFP Section B.3.b states that “s shall propose labor hour prices for work performed outside the United States in accordance with the Labor Rate Table for workers with foreign tax exemption. In awarding task orders against and paying invoices on the GSM-O contract, the Government will utilize those prices (from the Labor Rate Table) for tax exempt status labor rates unless the Contractor has completed all required applications/negotiations with the Host Nation under the SOFA and has been officially denied tax exempt status by the Host Nation. Employee taxes imposed by a Host Nation shall be compensated as an ODC under the GSM-O contract.”

This appears to be in conflict with the response to Question 239 that “The Government will not treat TESA, SOFA, host nation taxes as ODCs under the GSM-O contract.”

Please confirm which statement is the overriding guidance (DRFP Section B.3.b or Q&A#239).

ANSWER #379: DRFP Section B, paragraph B.3.b is correct. Employee taxes imposed by a Host Nation shall be compensated as an ODC under the GSM-O contract ONLY IF the Contractor has completed all required applications/negotiations with the Host Nation under the SOFA and has been officially denied tax exempt status by the Host Nation.

QUESTION #380: Reference DRFP, B.2.f: Section B.2.f states that ODCs are not subject to any fee (cost reimbursable only). It may be possible that under DRFP Section H.17 a task order could require substantial amounts of hardware or software (beyond what the term “incidental” would imply with regard to responses to questions 186 and 187). Does the Government anticipate that all hardware and software purchases, regardless of value, will not be subject to fee?

ANSWER #380: Only "incidental" material and equipment costs are considered ODCs. ODCs (CLIN 0005) are reimbursed at cost and are not subject to fee. However, major equipment, hardware, software, etc. purchases will be included under FFP and/or Cost Reimbursable CLINs (CLINs 0001 through 0004). In those cases, fee would be applicable.

NOTE: Section B, paragraph B.2f of the final RFP for the GSM-O effort will be revised to reflect: “ODCs may consist of items such as incidental materials, equipment, travel, training, shipping, freight, relocation, and other services necessary to provide the required service. This Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) is not subject to any fee. Costs shall be reimbursed at cost plus applicable indirect costs.”

QUESTION # 381: Reference Section K: There are two DFAR clauses, 252.225-7023 Preference for Products or Services from Iraq or Afghanistan, and 252.225-7024 Requirement for Products or Services from Iraq or Afghanistan referenced in Section K – Representations and Certifications that basically states that “ The represents that all products or services to be delivered under a contract resulting from this solicitation are products from Iraq or Afghanistan or services from Iraq or Afghanistan, except those listed in - ” and “For the purpose of evaluating competitive offers, the Contracting Officer will increase by 50 percent the prices of offers of products or services that are not products or services from Iraq or Afghanistan.” Are these clauses applicable to this procurement and if so, please clarify when and where they would apply?

ANSWER #381: Both DFAR clauses 252.225-7023 and 252.225-7024 will be deleted in their entirety. These clauses are not applicable to this solicitation.

QUESTION # 382: Reference CD-ROM. The DGS task orders provided in the CD ROM cover the very late 2009 and 2010 period of performance. In order to provide industry a more complete picture of the DGS tasks year-over-year, request that the DGS task orders covering all of 2009 be provided.

ANSWER #382: Task Orders for year 2009 have been added to the FOUO-level CD‑ROM. The FOUO-level CD-ROM will be available 01 November 2010 using procedure provided in Draft RFP Section L, Paragraph L.4.

QUESTION #383: Reference CD-ROM. In reference to the file “maintenance agreement_0520202010.xlsm” provided on the CD-ROM for list of equipment under Vendor Maintenance Agreements, the CD-ROM provides monthly Asset Maintenance history for DGS TO28 and shows parts replacements for the following vendors not included in the “maintenance agreement_0520202010.xlsm” file: Adtran, Allied Telesys, APC, Arbor, Canoga, Cyber Ops, Cyberguard, Emerson, General Dynamics, L3, Lorain, Pairgain, Pulse, Verilink, and Transition Networks. Since these products do not appear under vendor maintenance or as spares should bidders assume replacements for these products as cost reimbursable or the products are GFE?

ANSWER #383: Replacement actions, when required for products that are currently in the installed infrastructure and for which a maintenance agreement is not operative, will be the responsibility of the GSM-O contractor. Some of the items referenced would be considered “uneconomically repairable” and as part of the vendor solution, we would expect that vendor to be present a solution for the next generation replacement. The next generational replacement should be obtained from the Approved Product List (APL); however, when the replacement is not on the APL, the vendor should be prepared to defend having the item added to the APL. These actions would fall under Task Order 02 and are to be estimated and included within the fixed price for that Task Order. Such purchases will not be cost reimbursable as ODCs, and replacement parts may not be available from within the current inventory of spare/repair items.

QUESTION #384: Reference CD-ROM. Are there any maintenance contracts currently in place directly between the Government and the OEMs instead of between the DGS contractor and the OEMs? If so, please provide details (vendors, maintenance contract descriptions, etc). Would the Government anticipate that this arrangement continue for GSM-O?

ANSWER #384: All current maintenance agreements are between the DGS contractor (actually, its provider subcontractor) and the OEM. None are between the Government and the OEM. As described in Task Order 02, this structure is to be continued in the future.

QUESTION #385: Reference CD-ROM. The CD-ROM has a file name “SAIC TO 36.doc”, but the document is TO 0044. Please provide the document for SAIC TO 36.

ANSWER #385: File name is incorrect on the CD-ROM. There is no current Task Order 36.

QUESTION #386: The Government response to Q&A #295 indicates that the approximate clearance level breakout for DGS is 57% TS, 35% S, and 8% TS/SCI. Do these percentages represent (approximate) DGS requirements for clearance levels, or do they simply reflect the clearance levels that the contractors hold. The latter would represent situations (for ex) where a contractor is required to hold only a secret level clearance to perform his/her DGS tasks, but may actually have a TS or TS/SCI clearance for historical or other reasons.

ANSWER #386: The data provided is historical. However because the context and activities that drive the requirement for a security clearance will be the same in the GSM-O context, the stated percentages reflect the Government’s expectation as to the percentage of the total workload that will require each category of clearance level.

QUESTION #387: The Government response to Q&A #315 indicates that there are approximately 1500 DGS contractor FTEs, of which approximately 51% will be directed towards GSM-O scope. In order to provide a more complete understanding of the historical tasks, we have the following clarification questions:

a) Does this total include both the large contract and small contract?

b) Is the 51% estimate relative to total contract value or FTE count?

c) Does the 51% estimated to be related to GSM-O scope assume the removal of CNDSP requirements from Year 1 Task Orders?

d) Request that the Government provide a breakdown of the 51% by DGS Task Order (i.e. allocation of the 51% to individual DGS task orders).

ANSWER #387:

a)Yes. This number is for both the current large and small business DGS contractors. Again, and as a reminder, this number is provided as a historical reference only and may or may not be indicative of what is projected on GSM.

b) This percentage is relative to projected individual contract value. As the initial GSM‑O task orders are being released as performance based Task Orders, it would not be appropriate to provide an FTE estimate to prospective vendors.

c) The percentages, called out as historic references, were indicative of the total amount of projected work across all GSM tasks. That would include the CND (and DMS) tasks that are not included in year one of GSM-O.

d) Most of the current DGS task orders will not be a “one-for-one” migration from their current state to GSM. As a reminder, within the GSM program – we intend on grouping task orders functionally. Some of the current DGS task orders contain elements of all the GSM offerings (O, ETI, and P&S). The Government is currently undergoing a DGS “Task Order Dissection” to ensure that all active DGS tasks will be adequately covered by GSM O, ETI, or P&S Task Orders, or will be handled in year one by DGS extensions. At this time, there is no way to clearly identify the exact breakdown. The descriptions provided in Task Order 01 and Task Order 02 and the information provided in the active DGS task orders provide the adequate information to come up with an informed solution. However, the Government is currently conducting a study of how the current DGS task orders will fit into GSM Task Orders 01 and02. The Government intends to provide the correlation for clarity prior to release of the Final RFP for the GSM-O effort.

QUESTION #388: Reference PWS, Appendix C, C-4. In reference to QASP ALP #8 and Q&A #331, we assume that for an order request which requires a lease of a 3rd party circuit, the "clock" measuring the GSM-O contractor's performance against this particular request fulfillment action "stops" during the time DITCO establishes the lease with the CSP. And following the completion of this action, the clock "restarts" to continue to measure the contractor's performance. Is this correct?

ANSWER #388: If a provisioning action includes a change to the backbone bandwidth, then per PWS Table 1 row 4, that action will be transferred by the Government to the GSM-ETI contractor for action. When completed, the final integration of the ETI-performed action would be addressed in GSM-O PWS 6.2.7. If the provisioning action does not change the backbone bandwidth, e.g. for a lease that provides an “access” circuit, then that action would be measured via ALP row 8, UNLESS the Government declares it to be in the Other Than Standard category (Table 1 row 6). To clarify the ALP clock mechanism, in ALP Row 8, the Objective cell will be revised to add: “…Also, if a new third party access circuit is required, time attributable to DITCO action to establish the lease with the circuit provider is not counted in the periods being measured.”