Enterprise Telecommunication Services

The University of Maryland, College Park is requesting proposals for enterprise telecommunication services under RFP BPM058210, with proposals due September 11, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. EST (extended from August 28 via Amendment 01). Award will be made on a Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) basis.

The University has established a 29% Minority Business Enterprise participation goal; MBE participation is encouraged rather than mandated, and only firms certified by the Maryland Department of Transportation count toward the goal. Offerors must demonstrate a minimum of five years of experience and at least three successful deployments at Research 1 institutions with 25,000 or more undergraduate students, with at least one reference from an R1 institution.

The scope covers voice services, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking, unified communications, and Plain Old Telephone Services (POTS) lines across multiple locations: College Park main campus, Atlantic Building, California location, Patuxent Building, and the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research satellite campus in Rockville. Service requirements include a minimum of 300,000 voice long-distance minutes per month; 400 concurrent SIP call paths across two geographically diverse sites (200 minimum at College Park, 100 minimum at IBBR, 20 at USMSM); approximately 32,000 DID numbers; toll-free access; 99.99% uptime SLA with documented remediation; 24/7 technical support; and 92+ analog POTS lines for elevators, alarms, and faxes. The contractor must provide physically diverse last-mile connectivity from separate vendors with separate building entrances and demarcations at College Park and IBBR, utilizing vendor-managed, directly peered SIP circuits. The University retains existing Cisco Unified Communications Manager 15 cluster and Cisco ISR4431 Session Border Controllers; the vendor delivers SIP service to these on-premises devices. E911 services are not required, but vendors must deliver 911 calls to local PSAPs. POTS analog lines, fax services, and PBX replacement were excluded from scope by amendment.

The contract runs three years base with two optional twelve-month renewal periods. All pricing is fixed for the initial 36-month term and must cover monthly recurring charges and one-time implementation costs including installation, equipment, number porting, and project management. Offerors must submit separate technical and financial volumes electronically via secure Box folders.

Offerors must carry a minimum of $2 million in commercial general liability coverage and $3 million in Network Security & Privacy Liability insurance, increasing to $5 million if personally identifiable information, FERPA records, or health information is involved. Section 889 affidavits for telecommunications equipment and all required certifications, bid/proposal affidavits, and conflict of interest disclosures are required. Questions were due August 12, 2026. The pre-proposal conference was held August 7, 2026 via Zoom. Brett Blake, Sr. Procurement Coordinator for IT Procurement, is the primary contact at bblake14@umd.edu.