S02 Intent to Solicit to a Single Source_36C10X24Q0026.pdf

Contract Opportunity

Special Notice

CLASSIFICATION CODE *

SUBJECT

CONTRACTING OFFICE'S

ZIP-CODE

SOLICITATION NUMBER

ARCHIVE DAYS AFTER THE RESPONSE DATE

RECOVERY ACT FUNDS

NAICS CODE

CONTRACTING OFFICE

ADDRESS

POINT OF CONTACT

(POC Information Automatically Filled from

User Profile Unless Entered)

DESCRIPTION See Attachment

AGENCY'S URL

URL DESCRIPTION

AGENCY CONTACT'S EMAIL

ADDRESS

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GENERAL INFORMATION

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

* = Required Field Contract Opportunity Special Notice

Notice of Intent to Solicit from a Single Source

Land Mobile Radio Equipment Trunking Services within the

Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area

21703

36C10X24Q0026

N

334220

Strategic Acquisition Center - Frederick

Department of Veterans Affairs

5202 Presidents Court, Suite 103

Frederick MD 21703

Brian Ballard Brian.Ballard@va.gov

Micah Kauzlarich Carey.Kauzlarich@va.gov https://www.va.gov/opal/sac/index.asp

Strategic Acquisition Center - Frederick

Synopsis The U.S Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), Office of Procurement, Acquisitions, & Logistics (OPAL), Strategic Acquisition Center-Frederick (SAC-F), in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.203-(a) and FAR 6.302-1(b)(1)(i) intends to award a single source contract to Pegasus Radio Corp. 1202 Technology Dr. Suite C. Aberdeen, MD 21001-1245, a Small Business (SB).

Background The Veterans Affairs Central Office (VACO) – Office of Human Resources & Administration (HR&A) Office of Administration (OA) requires a firm-fixed price contract for Land Mobile Radio Equipment Trunking Services within the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area. The requested period of performance is 12 months from date of award, with four 12-month option periods beginning Dec 1, 2023, through Nov 30, 2028.

Purpose and Objective The contractor shall provide radio replacement, programming, maintenance, and airtime subscription of 100 Portable Handheld 2-way radios (Wave) in addition to 100 Push to Talk (PTT) application subscriptions for Veteran Affairs Central Office (VACO) employees with VA-issued government furnished equipment (GFE) iPhones.

Anticipated Period of Performance Delivery shall occur within 30 days after receipt of order.

Single Source Circumstances The Department of Commerce’s (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has been designated as the regulating agency for all Federal spectrum use in accordance with the Executive Order 12046, Section 2-404 dated Mar 27, 1978, and the Executive Order 12472, Section 2 (c)(3) dated April 3, 1984. As the designee, NTIA, with advice from the Emergency Planning Subcommittee (EPS) and Spectrum Planning Subcommittee (SPS), reviews National Security and Emergency Planning (NSEP) spectrum dependent systems and assigns the appropriate Telecommunications Service Priority for Radio communications (TSP-R) (spectrum use priority) and system approval certifications, which ensures system compliance with prevailing spectrum management policies, allocations, regulations and technical standards (Federal, National, and international). The SPS Secretary maintains a list of NTIA approved trunking systems and their TSP-R information. Radio frequency and telecommunications have specific interoperability requirements that are regulated to provide a secure and survivable interagency telecommunications capability within the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the White House.

NITA contract # 1331L519P13350204 was issued to Pegasus Radio Corp effective Aug 29, 2019. The contract is currently effective as of Mod P23003 with a current Period of Performance (POP) from Jan 10, 2023 – Aug 31, 2024, which is documented in the contract file. Per the contract, “The Federal Specialized Mobile Radio (FEDSMR) is a commercially owned and operated trunked land mobile radio system, supported by the DOC and the NTIA, to provide service to federal government entities and qualified government contractors. The FEDSMR system is critical to the continued safety and security of existing users to maintain continuity of operations… FEDSMR shall focus on areas and locations with a high concentration of government facilities. Current approved and services areas are the cities of Washington, D.C.;

Norfolk, VA; Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; and Baltimore, MD… FEDSMR is a privately owned system. The contractor is responsible for designing, engineering, and implementing the trunked communication systems at no cost to NTIA; cost will be recovered through leased service contracts with participating federal agencies. Federal agencies will be encouraged to use the system or systems; however, the DOC/NTIA cannot require the agencies to use the system.”

Pegasus/Federal Radio is currently the only source for FEDSMR and FR-Wave subscription service, programming and complete equipment sales and service. No other company is authorized by Pegasus/Federal Radio or under contract with the US DOC to provide dedicated government trunked radio services. Trunking is the automatic sharing of multiple radio channels between several separate radio user groups, providing fast and efficient use of the available radio spectrum. Traditional radio systems use a single radio at a building or tower site. The Federal Radio digital trunked radio achieves greater range by utilizing both high antenna sites and low power networked sites. Trunking at a site allows all users to benefit from the greater range achieved by the tower(s).

The use of the Pegasus/Federal Radio frequency spectrum and equipment will provide the necessary interoperability and compatibility required to continue secure communications between federal agencies and state/local government and their existing radio frequencies.

Additionally, being an approved NTIA frequency spectrum provider, Pegasus/Federal Radio meets all spectrum management policies, allocations, emergency preparedness regulations and technical standards which ensure that their frequency and equipment provide a robust communications network for protecting Federal Continuity of Government communications, which is critical to telecommunications emergency preparedness.

Furthermore, the NTIA Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management (Red Book) Paragraph 8.2.48A.5 states "All requests for frequency assignments to support Government owned and operated conventional or trunked land mobile radio systems within 30 km of an existing NTIA authorized trunked land-mobile system, whether operated by a Federal agency or a commercial vendor, shall be accompanied by a justification that indicates why use of the existing system could not meet agency requirements." (ex. Existing system would not meet the requesting agency's mission requirements, GAO B-279349). The available FEDSMR trunking system meets VACO needs.

NTIA has established FEDSMR to provide spectrum-efficient trunked radio communications to Federal users that can benefit from multiple talk groups and other features. Several other agencies also use the NTIA administered FEDSMR system, which supports Continuity of Operations (COOP), emergency response operation requirements as well as day-to-day communications.

Additional Information

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