sole_source_justification_FRGP SIGNED_Redacted.pdf

Sole Source (Including Brand Name) Justification - Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items

SOURCE SELECTION SENSITIVE

March 2023 SOURCE SELECTION SENSITIVE Page 2 of 3March 2023 SOURCE SELECTION SENSITIVE Page 2 of 3

I. Contracting Activity.

United States Air Force Academy, 10th Contracting Squadron, PKB Flight

II. Nature and/or description of the action being processed.

USAF Academy (USAFA) A6 has a requirement to continue membership in the Front Range GigaPop (FRGP) for the purposes of adding Internet bandwidth, collaboration and connections to other educational and research networks, and to serve as a companion and redundancy for the MissionNet network.

III. Description of supplies/services required to meet agency needs.

The USAF Academy requires a 10 GBps Internet connection to provide Internet bandwidth for the MissionNet academic network. It will serve as a redundancy to USAFA's current Internet connection with Lumen, and will provide a connection to other educational and research institutions along the front range. Vendor must have knowledge in internet circuits or internet provisioning as well as meet the requirement of consortium membership access.

IV. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1), Use of procedures other than competitive procedures.

V. Demonstration that the contractor's unique qualifications or nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited above (applicability of authority).

FRGP is the only regional consortium serving the state of Colorado for Universities, research organizations, non-profit corporations, government agencies, cities, and counties to share wide area networking services, with commodity Internet, caching, and peering connectivity. No other academic consortia exist within the region supporting the state of Colorado. As such, it is the only solution that meets USAFA’s requirement.

VI. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable.

In June 2022 market research was accomplished for USAFA's secondary circuit. It was determined at that time that only four internet circuit providers are available in Colorado Springs. These are AT&T, Comcast, Lumen and Falcon Broadband (StratusIG). These companies do provide internet circuits, however they provide no educational consortium/collaboration services. FRGP was identified as the only academic consortium serving the state of Colorado, and, therefore, the only vendor that satisfied USAFA's academic consortium membership requirements. As of the time of this acquisition, FRGP is still the only Regional Optical Network academic consortium in the state of Colorado (see attached map of "The Quilt" of US Regional Research and Education Networks). See Section VIII below for information regarding a sources sought which was posted to SAM.gov on 31 Jan 24.

VII. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

Price reasonableness will be determined in accordance with FAR 13.106-3(a)(2) prior to award, and will be documented in the contract file per FAR 13.501(b)(3).

VIII. Description of the market research conducted and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.

Market research confirmed that FRGP is the only academic consortia supporting the state of Colorado. A sources sought was also issued 31 Jan 24 on SAM.gov to determine capability in the market. Two responses were received however, it was determined that the two vendors were unable to fulfill the requirement as they were not able to fulfill the consortium necessity, this is due to the fact that a for-profit, non-educational, or third-party company will be