ATTJA.pdf

Control ERDC 14-06

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

(SOLE SOURCE)

1. CONTRACTING ACTIVITY: The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Contracting Office (ECO), 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180-6199.

2. DESCRIPTION OF ACTION: A new Firm Fixed Priced (FFP) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) call for the renewal of Blackberry 7 devices and services, currently provided by AT&T Mobility LLC through the Army Contracting Command’s Next Generation Wireless BPA Cellular and Paging Solutions. The BPA Call will be awarded using civil funds. The current BPA call order for this requirement is W91RUS-11-A-0007-C602.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES: The September 2013 wireless billing shows that USACE has a total of 12,951 Blackberry 7 smart phones, 7,624 of which are provided service by AT&T Mobility LLC. The remaining 5,327 phones are covered by other carriers such as Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. All of which are also provided through the Army Contracting Command’s Next Generation Wireless BPA Cellular and Paging Solutions.

The table below provides the details of the services currently in use and required to be renewed by AT&T Mobility LLC for the 7,624 Blackberry 7 smart phones.

Product Category Product Description Quantity

Voice and Data 100 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 200 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 300 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 400 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 500 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 600 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 700 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 800 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 900 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 1000 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 1300 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 2000 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 4000 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data 6000 min national pool plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data Unlimited min plan to include unlimited Smartphone data and unlimited domestic text.

Voice and Data National Flat Rate voice plan to include unlimited Smartphone data.

Data Only Data only for Smartphones no voice 8 Voice 100 min national voice pool plan. 1020

Voice 200 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 300 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 400 min national voice pool plan. 20

Voice 500 min national voice pool plan to include unlimited domestic text.

Voice 600 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 700 min national voice pool plan. 1 Voice 800 min national voice pool plan. 1 Voice 900 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 1000 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 1300 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 2000 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 4000 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice 6000 min national voice pool plan. 1

Voice Unlimited national min voice plan 1 Voice Flat rate voice only plan at .09/min 1001

Tethering Unlimited Blackberry Tethering for used with any Blackberry Bundle offer

Data Connect Unlimited Domestic Data Connect Plan with throttle 2 Data Connect 5 GB of pooled data connect 1664

Text 100 text messages 5 Text 200 text messages 9 Text 300 text messages 15 Text 1000 text messages 24

Text 1500 text messages 28 Text Unlimited text messages 5 Text Pay per use text messaging 1

4. AUTHORITY CITED: The proposed action will be awarded on a sole source basis under the authority of the test program for commercial items (section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996) in accordance with FAR Subpart 13.501(a)(1)(ii) – Test Program for Certain Commercial Items, Special Documentation Requirements, Sole Source Acquisitions. The Government expects that the offeror will only include commercial items.

5. REASON FOR AUTHORITY CITED: The USACE currently utilizes Blackberry 7 smart phones which are now end of life (EOL) due to the new Blackberry 10 smart phones being available; however, these new Blackberry 10 smart phones are not approved for use at this time.

Blackberry 7 smart phones are the only Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) approved smart phone for networking and providing corporate email to USACE end-users. These Blackberry 7 smart phones are currently owned by AT&T Mobility LLC. Since the Blackberry 7 smart phones can no longer be purchased, the USACE must continue to use the current phones and services provided by AT&T Mobility LLC. Although Blackberry does make smart phones for use by other major carriers besides AT&T Mobility LLC, the phones are not interchangeable because they operate on different radio frequencies that are independently owned by specific carriers.

USACE is heavily dependent on the Blackberry 7 smart phones. The September 2013 wireless billing shows that USACE has 12,951 Blackberry 7 smart phones in production of which 7,624 are provided by AT&T Mobility LLC. The remaining phones are covered by other carriers such as Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. USACE has firsthand experience in refreshing wireless devices at a national level. In 2007 an enterprise refresh took USACE well over a year to complete when there were less than 10,000 total known devices in production with all carriers combined, including cell phones and air cards. Today there are well over that many AT&T devices alone. If these services are not continued, all these devices would need to be replaced, delivered to the end-user, services activated, configurations/applications/settings transferred, and smart phones configured with email and activated on the Blackberry servers in very short amount of time. This could not possibly be done in a timely manner as it is estimated to take over two years to refresh the wireless equipment throughout the USACE.

There is no alternative other than to continue the use of Blackberry 7 smart phones until such a time as the Blackberry 10 server infrastructure becomes DISA approved or other alternatives such as iPhone/Droid devices and server infrastructure become DISA approved and pilot tested in USACE. In the absence of these alternatives, changing carriers would cause thousands of USACE users to no longer have access to smart phone mobile devices.

6. EFFORTS TO OBTAIN COMPETITION: The Army mandates that the Next Generation Wireless BPAs Cellular and Paging Solutions be utilized by all Army agencies for the procurement of wireless devices and services. These multiple BPAs were established in accordance with FAR 13.303-2(c) to satisfy maximum practical competition, however, for this specific action, no further competition can be obtained as stated in Section 5 of this J&A.

Additionally, this sole source justification and approval will be posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website in accordance with FAR 13.501(a)(1)(iii).

7. ACTIONS TO INCREASE COMPETITION: The wireless enterprise BPAs listed below in Section 9 are available to all DoD agencies until August 2016. The Army Chief Information Officer/G-6 declared mandatory use of the BPAs for the purchase of cellular devices and services. This policy is to remain in effect through 30 July 2017. The USACE will continue to procure cellular devices and services via the Army Contracting Command’s Next Generation Wireless BPA Cellular and Paging Solutions until policy expiration. Until then, it is impracticable to compete the current acquisition and competition is not a viable option.

8. MARKET RESEARCH: The purpose of the Next Generation Wireless BPAs is to be the primary wireless source for the Army. Multiple BPAs were established on a non-competitive basis for the acquisition of wireless services, including voice and data services. Agreements with four (4) large wireless providers and (3) small carriers were established to satisfy maximum practicable competition. These BPAs are specifically designed as the primary source of wireless services to meet the DoD’s needs at home and abroad. Since these BPAs provide for tremendous cost savings, the Army Chief Information Officer/G-6 declared mandatory use of the BPAs for the purchase of cellular devices and services.

9. INTERESTED SOURCES: Multiple BPAs were established for the acquisition of wireless services, including voice and data services. Agreements with four (4) large wireless providers and three (3) small carriers were established to satisfy maximum practicable competition. The following is a list of the BPA holders, and their respective BPA numbers.

Agreement Number BPA Holder W91RUS-11-A-0005 Sprint Solutions W91RUS-11-A-0006 Verizon Wireless W91RUS-11-A-0007 AT&T Mobility W91RUS-11-A-0008 T-Mobile W91RUS-11-A-0009 Cellhire (OCONUS) W91RUS-11-A-0010 USA Mobility (Paging) W91RUS-11-A-0011 ST Messaging (Paging)

The current carriers utilized by the USACE will be renewed on a sole source basis through the Next Generation BPAs. Additionally, this sole source justification and approval will be posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website in accordance with FAR 13.501(a) (1) (iii).

10. OTHER FACTS: The previous awards to AT&T Mobility were made utilizing the Next Generation BPA W91RUS-11-A-0007. BPA Call C601 was placed on 25 October 2011 and BPA Call C602 was placed on 25 October 2012; both awarded on a sole source basis under the authority FAR Subpart 13.501(a)(1)(ii) – Test Program for Certain Commercial Items.