RFC-002 Response.docx

N7027224Q0020

KEY WEST VOIP SOLUTION

REQUEST FOR SPECIFICATION CLARIFICATION

RFC -002

NAME OF CONTRACTOR: _______________________________________________

SPECIFICATION ITEM NO.: _ SAM.GOV Notice ID: N7027224Q0020; Related Notice: N7027224N0020

PARAGRAPH / SECTION NO:_VARIOUS_

TITLE: _ Key West Infrastructure VOIP Transition Solution_______

QUESTION:

1. RFQ Item 9(a) states the award shall be made to the lowest priced technically acceptable offeror in LPTA solicitations. Item 9(a) does not make any reference to 24Q0020+ANNEX+EVAL+FACTORS.docx, included in the solicitation. Are these evaluation factors (pass and fail) the basis for the determination for a technically acceptable solution? If so, will the Government add, by reference, to the RFQ 9(a) that this document was the basis to determine the technically acceptable solution?

2. Annex B Eval Factors (Contractor’s technical offer will be assessed based on the RFQ PWS/SOW identified technical requirements) Factor #1 states Pass is the vendor delivers a comprehensive site survey report including all required documentation (layout drawings, ISP cabling, power drawings/specifications, floor plans, engineering specifications, and OSP drawings). Annex A paragraph 10.1, Deliverables, states the vendor shall provide a comprehensive site survey report to the government, identified in Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL) A001, within 30 days of completion of the site survey. There seems to be an inconsistency in the two requirements in that, when read together, they indicate that an award will be determined based on a deliverable due after contracting. Would you please reconcile the two requirements? How can CDRL deliverable, due after contract award, be used as an award evaluation criteria?

3. Annex B Eval Factors (Contractor’s technical offer will be assessed based on the RFQ PWS/SOW identified technical requirements) Factor #2 states Pass is the vendor confirms required electronic copies, including site survey reports, internal building drawings, and external (OSP) drawings, are delivered in Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF format within 30 days of completion of the site survey. Annex A paragraph 10.1, Deliverables, states the vendor shall provide a comprehensive site survey report to the government, identified in Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL) A001, within 30 days of completion of the site survey. There seems to be an inconsistency in the two requirements in that, when read together, they indicate that an award will be determined based on a deliverable due after contracting. Would you please reconcile the two requirements? How can CDRL deliverable, due after contract award, be used as an award evaluation criteria?

4. Annex B Eval Factors (Contractor’s technical offer will be assessed based on the RFQ PWS/SOW identified technical requirements) Factor #5 states Pass is the vendor delivers documentation in both Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats. This documentation includes drawings that clearly depict the overall installed system configuration, network topology, and logical network diagrams showing the facilities necessary to deliver telephony service to each current user. With a solicitation release of 17 September and a proposal due date of 23 September, will the Government please extend the proposal 60 days to 22 November to allow offerors the adequate time to conduct an initial site survey to obtain all the necessary data to provide for proposal submission and evaluation?

5. Annex A, Section 3. Background states that NCTAMS LANT BCO Key West currently assigns and controls users’ voice features through the AT&T web portal. AT&T is the local exchange carrier (LEC) for Key West and surrounding area. Section 4.1 Scope states “Expectation is that the vendor(s) develop a plan with the high recommendation of utilizing the existing OSP/ISP infrastructure to provide VoIP commercial telephony service to approximately 2,200 current users (mixture of CENTREX, ISDN, and T-1 services) located in approximately 149 separate buildings on the base. The OSP infrastructure is owned/maintained by AT&T, consequently there is no Government Furnished Equipment/Infrastructure (GFE/I) OSP available.” Much of the evaluation factors require offerors to provide internal building drawings and external (OSP) drawings that are the sole ownership of the current incumbent AT&T. Assuming the Government agrees to a proposal extension to allow offerors the adequate time to conduct an initial site survey, what contractual language is in place under the incumbent contract to require AT&T to disclose information and data; required for other offerors to achieve a Pass standard? If no language exists currently, does the Government have a means to acquire drawings and other pertinent volumetrics that an offeror would need to provide a low-priced technical acceptable solution? Of more importance, does the Government have the legal recourse to acquire the incumbent, AT&T. OSP to provide as GFE for the new contract?

6. Annex A, Section 5 Objectives states “The objective of this PWS is to define the requirements for the vendor to develop a plan for a fast turn-key VoIP telephone solution at NAS Key West, with approximately 2,200 current users located in approximately 149 separate buildings; recommend utilizing existing cable infrastructure.”. Does the Government have a detailed bidder’s library of additional volumetric data at levels below approximately 2,200 users located in approximately 149 separate buildings? As part of a pre-award site survey, we would offer a site survey checklist of items to the BCO to enable swift and accurate receipt of these additional volumetrics. Checklist items include but not limited to: (1) How many concurrent calls will be required to support all 2200 users? (2) What is the mix of users that are CENTREX Analog, ISDN, and T1? (3) Are there any BRI phone users that still require BRI service post deployment? If so, how many? (4) Will the government require porting of existing DIDs or will new DIDs be allowed? (5) Is there a requirement for DSN?

7. Annex A, Section 9.3 System features & station features item e. states “. The vendor’s proposed solution shall provide comprehensive Managed Network Services (MNS) to ensure the effective design, implementation, management, and optimization of the Key West network infrastructure.” Does the vendor’s MNS system have any FISMA requirements to ensure Navy/DOD security compliance?

8. RFQ Item 5 states the CLIN 0001 Proposed Period of Performance is 27 September 2024 to 26 January 2025 ARO. Per the SAM announcement’s General Information, the Offers due date is 23 September 2024. Does the Government intend to make an award four calendar days after receipt of offers’ bids?

9. RFQ Item 5 states the CLIN 0001 Proposed Period of Performance is 27 September 2024 to 26 January 2025 ARO. However, Annex A item 4. Scope, 4.2 states “The resulting contract would be for a 5 year ordering period.” Will the Government please clarify the Period of Performance?

10. RFQ General, Does the Government intend to provide detailed proposal instructions to include: identifying section breakouts and description of content, page counts, etc. as the basis for determining the lowest price technically acceptable solution?

11. Annex A, Section 9.3 System features & station features item d. states “The vendor’s solution shall include NG911 systems to enhance emergency communication capabilities. This includes deploying NG911 infrastructure to support advanced features such as text-to-911, multimedia communication, and real-time data sharing.” Is it the government intention to have a fully deployed enhanced next generation 911 solution included in the response?

12. Does Naval Air Station Key West, Florida have any FedRamp or CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification) requirements that will need to be met for the VoIP delivery system?

13. This vendor has noted that very few feature/functionality requirements have been provided as part of the scope. Please confirm that the Navy requires bidders to propose a solution that offers a feature set comparable to Centrex, or provide a comprehensive list of required features and functionality.

14. The Background section states that “NCTAMS LANT is seeking telecommunication vendors to conduct a site survey and develop a solution,” and required deliverables that would be derived from such a site survey are listed in Section 10. This conflicts with subsequent language in the RFQ that implies that vendors are to propose and price a final solution up front. Please clarify what services and solution are actually to be quoted and provide a pricing template to be used for the proposal. Are the site survey and the development of documentation listed in paragraph 10 required?

15. A new solution may require phone-terminating gateways in some or all of the buildings. Since the government expresses a desire to reuse existing telephones, please provide brands, models and quantities of phones to be reused by building to scope the number and type of necessary gateways.

16. Is the Navy considering replacing existing handsets with IP phones? If so, please provide quantities and types required: single line, multi-line, conference unit, etc.

17. The government recommends the proposal of a cloud solution. Wide area network connectivity accessible to all buildings will be necessary for such a solution. Please indicate how the Navy would prefer to connect to a hosted solution. Would connections from the base to the cloud be via the internet? Or via a secure WAN such as MPLS? Should vendors propose such connectivity? Or will the Navy provide it?

18. The government mentions a requirement for MNS, but a full “network” (LAN) will not be necessary if the Navy is reusing legacy phones. Please provide details of the envisioned network solution that is needed as part of this solicitation.

19. Paragraph 4.2 states that this solicitation will be awarded between January and June of 2025. When does the government plan to actually deploy the solution?

20. The government states that an “On-site pre-proposal conference meeting is strongly recommended.” When will such a meeting take place and how will this be coordinated with the aggressive due date for proposals?

21. If legacy telephones are to be reused, telephony gateways may be needed for telephone termination. These gateways, in turn, would need to connect to a LAN port to gain access to a wide area network/internet to connect to a VoIP central office. Are any of these components available for use for this solution, or should bidders propose any necessary stand-alone LAN switches and network connections? If they are available, please provide details including the quantity and location of points of WAN egress on the base.

22. Based on sections 3, 7 and 9, there appears to be a desire to use AT&T OSP copper to provide VOIP commercial telephony and voicemail service to approximately 2,200 users located in approximately 149 separate buildings.

Because VOIP primarily uses Ethernet, what Ethernet facilities connected to the Internet are available at each location?

23. What end user telephone devices such as SIP based desk phones, desk top computer clients and or mobile apps are required.

ANSWER:

1. Yes, evaluation factors (pass/fail) are the basis for the government to determine a technical acceptable solution. As stated in Item 5 of RFQ, ANNEX B has been identified. As well in Item 9(a) the two key evaluation elements are Technical Capability and Price. Within context of 9(a) can be found the statement “Award shall be made to the lowest price technically acceptable offeror”. Within the same paragraph it is identified that to be considered a technically acceptable solution for a service, the quoted service shall meet the solicitation requirements including terms and conditions stated in the solicitation. The ANNEX’s are directly linked to this solicitation and are part of the solicitations terms and conditions.

2. Vendor is encouraged to review the revised RFP and advise if perceived requirement inconsistency remains.

3. Vendor is encouraged to review the revised RFP and advise if perceived requirement inconsistency remains.

4. Solicitation will not be extended for a period of 60 days. Budget year ends on September 30th for current funding commitment. As result of responses received to date the government will extend the solicitation, however with the limited time available the government recommends providing best effort to demonstrate ability to meet requirement. Intent for evaluation is not for the exact details but to provide details of capability to meet the requirement for final product submission during performance.

5. The government does not have a preconceived outcome for solution. As well the government does not contest any intent for industry to collaborate with other sources including the incumbent for best possible outcome. Although there is current infrastructure in place, the government is open to consider all possible solutions that would provide reasonable and efficient solutions for the intended purpose. The government is open for teleconference with all interested parties to be set at a single designated time and day.

6. Following data provided (numbers align with original question).

(1) The government does not maintain the telephone switch so does not have concurrent call detail.

(2) CENTREX: 2200, ISDN Data: 16, ISDN Voice: 30, T1: 20.

(3) BRI: 40.

(4) The government would prefer to port existing numbers but is not opposed to new numbers.

(5) No DSN requirement.

7. FISMA does not apply.

8. The government will be making every attempt to have award in an expeditious manner due to end of budget year. Every attempt will be made to have award executed in 4 days or less, if award is achievable it will be executed no later than 30 September.

9. Initial period of performance is a proposed estimate and will be based on offer proposed dates of the awardee. Resulting contract is in respect to a separate contract that applies to maintaining services once solution is put into place.

10. Lowest Price Technically Acceptable determination is based on three phases. First is all offers will be evaluated based on ANNEX A and how it translates with ANNEX B. Second is Lowest Price of all those found to be fully technically acceptable in first phase. And final phase is determination of eligibility for government contract award.

11. Yes.

12. FedRamp is required if a vendor is proposing a cloud-based solution. CMMC is not currently a governmental mandate, so is not required, at this time, for this VoIP solution.

13. The government has a requirement for: CENTREX, ISDN Data, ISDN Voice, and T1 circuitry.

14. Vendor is encouraged to review the revised RFP and advise if perceived requirement inconsistency remains.

15. The government would expect the vendor solution to describe a plan to identify this information during performance.

16. Each user has the option to replace their existing phones, however the government expects the vendor solution(s) to support existing handsets.

17. The Government would not be opposed to multiple vendor solution submissions.

18. The Government would not be opposed to multiple vendor solution submissions.

19. The contract award referenced is for the resulting contract for services after solution is in place. With intent of current requirement time of resulting contract is reasonable expectation.

20. The government is not opposed to the vendor solution being submitted without an on-site meeting and would be open to a virtual teleconference. If teleconference will take place will be provided at a designated time on short notice for all interested parties to attend.

21. The Government would not be opposed to multiple vendor solution submissions. Details related to quantity/locations of points of egress is proprietary information not available to the government.

22. The government is not an Internet Service Provider (ISP) at NAS Key West.

23. None.

ATTACHMENT J - 8