P03 Final J_A NLEC_NG SO 5_Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: This action is a sole-source task order modification under the National Local Exchange Carrier (NLEC) Next Generation (NG) Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC) with AT&T, contract 36C10B20D0029, Task Order (TO) 36C10B21N0003ATT with an original award date of September 30, 2021, in the amount of . The modification will extend firm fixed price telecommunications services for a limited period not to exceed six months to support final transition activities.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: Continuation of voice and data telecommunications services — including POTS lines, Primary Rate Integrated (PRI) Services Digital Network (ISDN), Direct Inward Dialing/Direct Outward Dialing (DID/DOD), Metro Ethernet and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) — and associated features for existing NLEC services deployed to VA facilities. Under this TO, the scope includes 21 sites supporting 90 phone lines, with several Service Delivery Points (SDPs) serving critical facilities (e.g., clinical care units, clinic access lines, and emergency communications). The total estimated value of this proposed action is .

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting an exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(1) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(2)(i)(A), entitled “The agency need for the supplies or services is so urgent that providing a fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The VA Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) Telecommunications Provisioning Office (TPO) is executing a time-critical transition of legacy telecommunications services from the NLEC-NG task order to newly awarded Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) task orders. VA must reach 95% migration completion by July 31, 2026, an enterprise milestone coordinated with multiple carriers and dependent on phased cutovers across 21 sites and 90 phone lines. Missing this deadline would force slippage of interdependent activities (porting, testing, validation) and jeopardize the continuity of clinical operations and Veteran access to care at facilities where these lines support critical functions.

The remaining migration relies on carefully sequenced technical steps—including DID porting, PRI trunk migrations, circuit reconfiguration, carrier coordination, validation testing, and site-level cutovers—that must be executed without loss of dial tone or degradation of service. Any pause to conduct fair-opportunity procedures would abruptly interrupt these sequences and extend the transition timeline beyond July 31, 2026, creating a material risk of outages and degraded communications on clinical coordination lines, patient scheduling lines, and facility administration lines.

NLEC-NG Service Order 5 ATT Control Number: VA-26-00032440

Awarding a new interim task order to a different MATOC holder is not practicable and would increase operational risk. A non-incumbent would have to assume responsibility for live services already scheduled for migration to EIS, reconstruct routing tables, trunk groups, and numbering plans, and re-establish carrier posture and site configurations, while simultaneously coordinating EIS cutovers. This would introduce duplicative transition activities raise the probability of service outages—particularly for SDPs supporting critical care units and emergency communications.

The incumbent (AT&T) currently provides all POTS, PRI, DID services under TO 36C10B21N0003ATT and maintains the active service inventory, network configurations, circuit mappings, routing assignments, and established carrier coordination posture required for uninterrupted performance during the final phase of migration. The time required to solicit, evaluate, and award under fair-opportunity procedures would exceed the available window and materially increase operational risk.

Therefore, a limited continuation with the incumbent is the only approach that prevents unacceptable disruption to VA healthcare and administrative operations while the EIS transition completes.

This exception is strictly limited to the minimum period necessary to complete the migration to EIS and is not intended to circumvent competition. VA will terminate legacy services as transition activities are completed.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: The original task order was competitively awarded among all NLEC-NG MATOC holders. This modification is temporary and limited to enable safe completion of the EIS migration. Only the incumbent possesses immediate operational readiness, established configurations, and active circuit control necessary to continue performance without interruption during cutovers. Any attempt to transition to another MATOC holder would require separate onboarding and technical transfer, compounding the risk of service disruption and delaying VA’s migration schedule.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: VA is executing a structured migration plan to transition all legacy telecommunications services to EIS, which will eliminate the need for continued performance under most NLEC-NG task orders and restore full competition under the EIS ordering framework going forward.

8. Market Research: Market research confirms that only the incumbent currently provides the live POTS, PRI, and DID services necessary to ensure uninterrupted support during the transition window. Competing this limited extension would confer no benefit and would increase operational risk by introducing additional transition steps and hand-offs in the midst of carrier cutovers and site validations.

NLEC-NG Service Order 5 ATT Control Number: VA-26-00032440

9. Other Facts: This action is limited to the minimum duration and value necessary to complete migration activities to EIS and is not intended to circumvent competition.