JA Redacted.pdf

CUI

Control Number: JA-25-Hua-0518

Contractor: SOS International, LLC (SOSi) Program/Equipment: NETCOM IP-VTC

Justification Review Document for an Exception to Fair Opportunity � FAR 16.505(b)(2)

Program/Equipment: Non-personal Army Enterprise Internet Protocol Video Teleconference (IP-VTC) services supporting the United States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM).

Authority: 10 U.S.C. 3406(c)(3) and FAR Part 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C) � The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

Amount: $

Prepared by:

Contracting Officer:

Technical Representative:

Requirements Representative:

Controlled by: Army Controlled by: ACC-APG CUI Category: General Procurement and Acquisition Distribution/Dissemination Control:

FEDCON

POC:

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity Under FAR 16.505(b)(2)

1. Contracting Activity: U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG), Huachuca Division, 2133 Cushing Street, Building 61801, Room 2637, Fort Huachuca, AZ 85613-7070.

2. Description of Action: ACC-APG requests approval for a 100 percent Firm Fixed Price, 6-month, sole source extension of services modification to contract number FA873214D0020-W91RUS19F0014 for SOS International, LLC (SOSi), 1881 Campus Commons Drive, Suite 500, Reston, Virginia 207191-1572 to continue full performance from 10 July 2025 through 09 January 2026 for a total value of $ This modification will increase the current contract value to $

The short-term extension is required to keep critical Information Technology (IT) Support Services in place while affording the Government sufficient time to incorporate these services into the Global Cyber Center (GCC) contract award pending completion of corrective action ordered by the General Accountability Office (GAO) in a protest decision issued 12 June 2025. This acquisition will be funded using Fiscal Year 2025 Operations and Maintenance Army (OMA) funds.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: The contractor provides direct support to the United States Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) G-3/5 Headquarters, subcommand organizations and other NETCOM supported locations with business operations, Network Operations (NetOps), Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support, Cybersecurity, Knowledge Management (KM), Army Enterprise Service Ownership/Development and Capability Management, plus Content Management requirements for Army Enterprise IP-VTC capabilities.

The Independent Government Estimate (IGE) provided for this action is based on historical information on the current contract monthly invoicing costs, escalated for inflation by 2 percent. The anticipated costs and period of performance are:

Contract Action Value Performance Period 6-month extension for labor $ 10 July 2025 through 09 January

4. Authority Cited: Authority: 10 U.S.C. 3406(c)(3) and FAR Part 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C) � The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: The five-year task order award of FA873214D0020- W91RUS19F0014 in December 2018 resulted from a fair opportunity competition under the Information Technology Enterprise Solutions � 3 Hardware (ITES-3H) IDIQ.

Background: These same services were competed on CHESS ITES-3H as a 100% small business set-aside and contract W52P1J18DA021- W91RUS24F0137 was awarded to Summit Technologies, LLC, 1015 15th Street Northwest, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005-2605 on 07 June 2024. The company�s sole strategy for performing the work was to hire the incumbent employees and the compensation package turned out to be more expensive than the small business could afford. As a result, the awardee could not perform. In coordination with and in agreement from both cognizant Small Business Administration offices, Area II (Fort Huachuca) and Area IV (District of Columbia), contract W52P1J18DA021- W91RUS24F0137 was rescinded one week later on 14 June 2024 under W52P1J18DA021- W91RUS24F0137-P00001 as a no-cost settlement agreement - complete termination. Since then, the acquisition strategy has changed from competing these same services again on CHESS to incorporating these services under the separate Global Cyber Center (GCC) task order that has been awarded but is currently under protest.

NETCOM designs, implements, operates, and manages several Army Enterprise services/capabilities such as Unified Capabilities (UC). The UC team provides critical support and management of voice and Video Teleconference (VTC) services for the Continental US and remote support to Outside Continental United States (OCONUS) organizations that require Tier 3 level expertise to resolve outages or unsatisfactory levels of video and voice services to Senior leaders and Combatant Commanders.

The services provided by the UC team support Army Senior leaders with Command and Control (C2) voice, conferencing and VTC capabilities on the SIPR network which includes leaders from the Pentagon to Mission Commanders in the field. A discontinuation of services would cause a serious disconnect between Senior leaders who would not be able to properly communicate in a timely manner.

The services provided by the UC team on the NIPR side include normal communications capability of an installation that has already converted to VoIP communications from the older Time Division Multiplexing systems. The UC team sets and manages the Enterprise standards being used by NECs to maintain and upgrade systems and network access as needed. The Enterprise Program Office, Global Enterprise Network Modernization � Americas project team also uses the Enterprise standards to implement the new Voice Modernization (VMOD) project the Army has initiated that is in support of the overall Army vision for the Army Unified Network (AUN).

The VMOD implementation teams coordinate with the UC team before installations network configurations are changed to verify compliance and no disruption of service during change over.

The reason for asking for this Justification and Approval is to secure a continuation of support for current operations that include mission critical actions that support activities in progress in austere environments. To discontinue or interrupt service would impact Army leaders� ability to communicate actions in a timely manner, thereby putting soldiers lives in unnecessary danger. Not only does the team support and troubleshoot issues with voice and video communications but they also O&M the infrastructure that supports the Army�s VTC SIPR environment. The system averages 4500 voice and video calls per week supporting 64 Mission Partners, including other Agencies and deployed elements.

The new GCC Information Technology (IT) services task order will support the central hub for all Department of Defense Information Network Army (DODIN-A) Enterprise Service O&M actions. The UC Enterprise Services Team was due to transition onto the new GCC task order to consolidate all disparate contracts that are currently supporting DODIN-A O&M. This consolidation of Enterprise Services will provide better support, Cyber Response, and control of the Army�s portion of the DODIN.

The six-month extension being requested here is due to the GCC task order being protested; the task order cannot be modified for the inclusion of UC until the GAO protests are resolved and the task order is awarded. The GCC task order would have been awarded on or before 13 March 2025, with full performance beginning on or before 1 July 2025. DirectViz and SOSi, two unsuccessful offerors for the GCC task order, filed protests at the GAO on 5 March 2025 after the award announcement and debriefings were provided to industry.

GAO issued its decisions in both on 11 June 2025. Although GAO denied SOSi�s protest, it sustained DirectViz� protest, finding a possible impaired objectivity organizational conflict of interest (OCI). The GAO recommended that the Agency conduct an additional OCI investigation and, based on the results of the investigation, take appropriate action.

Based on the sustained protest, the Agency would have interrupted services on this contract in the absence of the sole source award to SOSi to continue performance on this contract for six months. Four of these six months are required to fully resolve the unmitigated OCI. ACC will re-evaluate Peraton�s possible OCI related to the U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) task order and determine the best course of action:

mitigation, neutralization, or a waiver. ACC anticipates that the award will stand with Peraton. However, if DVS protests again, the GAO has 100 days to decide. The timeline associated with the OCI investigation and mitigation is four months from 1 July 2025 to 31 October 2025. The contract FA873214D0020-W91RUS19F0014 expires on 09 July 2025.

On or around 31 October 2025, ACC expects to award the GCC task order. The GCC contract contracting Officer, , has confirmed in writing that the Unified

It is not in the Government�s best interest to bring on a new contractor currently because there is no time to bring a contractor up to speed to effectively perform the high level of integration required between all the service components that are crucial to ensuring mission success and there is high-risk of loss of certified personnel with highly specialized skill sets. It is in the best interest of the Government to continue services under the current contract until these services are incorporated into the GCC task order.

The current contractor, SOSi, has provided highly knowledgeable personnel for not only the types of equipment that are used within the Army�s voice and VTC environment, but they also have intricate knowledge of the anomalies within the environment. To replace this team at this time with only a minimal window until it is integrated into the GCC would not only interrupt current operations, but could potentially add undue costs to the Army, and would most likely create a disturbance of VMOD scheduling. Changing personnel would severely impact the continued updating, maintaining, and completion of the Risk Management Framework (RMF) package which is an Authorization to Operate (ATO) requirement to allow the systems to be on the network.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: The proposed contract action is an order placed under FAR subpart 16.5. Therefore, in accordance with FAR 5.202(a)(6), notice under

5.201 is not required. As required by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), the notice and justification will be published on the Government Point of Entry, currently at www.SAM.gov.

This is the third extension of services for this contract. The first was an urgent Firm Fixed Price, 30-day conversion of phase-out support to full performance from 10 June 2024 through 09 July 2024 under FA873214D0020-W91RUS19F0014-P000019 for a total value of $ which was approved at the contracting officer level under J&A control number JA-24-Hua-662, that continued critical services while NETCOM discussed the acquisition strategy for these same services. Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Operations and Maintenance, Army funds were used for that extension.

The second was a Firm Fixed Price, 12-month extension of services to support full performance from 10 July 2024 to 9 July 2025 under FA873214D0020- W91RUS19F0014-P000020 for a total value of $ which was approved at the competition advocate level under J&A control number JA-24-Hua-716, that continued critical services while NETCOM worked on incorporating UC services into the GCC contract. Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Operations and Maintenance, Army funds were used for that extension.

a. Effective competition. In the face of increasing global conflicts, bringing in a new contractor team to perform these critical services for a short time rather than continue with the current high performing team is not economical, nor efficient for the Government to accept, given all the considerations stated above.

b. Subcontracting competition. No feasible contracting opportunities exist for this contract action.