Notice of Intent to Sole Source SSMC Emergency Radio Network

Agency and contracting activity

Department of Commerce, NOAA Acquisition and Grants Office (AGO), Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (OCAO)

Description of supplies or services required to meet agency needs

The Silver Spring Metro Center (SSMC) Campus emergency radios, radio programming, batteries, and one year maintenance agreement for WAVE control box, repeaters, and panic buttons.  The SSMC emergency radio network facilitates emergency communication amongst all Line/Staff Offices at the SSMC Campus. 

Identification of the limited source(s) to be solicited.

Mobile Communications America, Inc.

P.O. Box 491810

Lawrenceville, GA 30049

Supporting Rationale

For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold, contracting officers may solicit from one source if the contracting officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available in accordance with FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)(i).

Programming for all radios (300+ in operation), panic buttons (60+ in operation), radio repeater, and the WAVE control box is proprietary to the vendor. The vendor custom-designed the programming architecture for the SSMC campus, and it resides on premises within the aforementioned system infrastructure.

Due to the nature of radio communication, the programming must reside on premises. The programming ensures that radios are interoperable only with other radios in the network.; delineates building-specific, security-specific, facilities/engineering-specific, and incident response-specific channels; manages simultaneous radio transmissions; provides priority access to radio bandwidth to designated emergency personnel; and allows for unique programming of individual pieces of hardware, which is essential for directing first responders and security guards during an emergency.

Purchasing additional hardware from any other vendor that does not have access to the proprietary programming architecture would require the entire system to be reconstituted from scratch and hundreds of pieces of existing hardware reprogrammed, during which time the radio network would be inoperable. This process would necessarily repeat anew every time successive awards are made to another vendor. This is unacceptable given the mission-criticality of the radio infrastructure to the SSMC Campus operations.

Due to the complexities of the existing infrastructure and associated custom, proprietary, on-premises programming required to ensure operation of the SSMC emergency radio network, as well as the prohibitive replacement cost associated with deviating from the current vendor, equipment, and associated network, only one source is capable of meeting the requirement.