Bureau of the Census, Procurement Office, Room 1541, FB#3, Washington, (Suitland, MD) DC 20233

R -- SERVICES OF A COMMERCIAL TELEPHONE CENTER POC Frances I. Toole, 301-457-1831 R - Request for Information Re: Commercial Telephone Centers. The Bureau of the Census is considering the possibility of contracting with commercial or government telephone centers to support national 1-800 telephone questionnaire assistance for the Year 2000 Decennial Census. The public will use the 1-800 numbers to ask questions and/or provide their interviews by telephone. The BOC plans to support both English and Spanish with the possibility of providing assistance for selected Asian languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and so forth. The expected call volume includes millions of calls during one week in early March, 2000 with the potential for 100,000 calls or more per hour during peak periods (where the average call length is projected to be 3-5 minutes). Call volumes will decrease dramatically over the 2 month period after early March but are expected to number in the millions of calls. Incoming calls will be supported 7 days a week for 16 hours a day. The BOC is soliciting information from telephone facilities which have an existing telecommunications infrastructure to service a high volume of incoming calls and a microcomputer configuration to support on-line questionnaire resource information and to record call information electronically. The telephone contractor would work with BOC's long distance carrier to receive routed calls. Please respond with information regarding your company's 1) telecommunications equipment and capabilities, 2) computer equipment and software platforms, 3) lines/operators available during peak calling period, 4) ability to conduct census questionnaire interviews (inbound and outbound calls); ability to key large volumes of name and address information from electronic mail boxes in a very short time frame and 5) cost information. There is no solicitation package available, this is only a request for information. This information should be directed to the above address to the attention of Frances I. Toole not later than thirty (30) days from the date of this notice. (0180)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0068 19950630\R-0002.SOL)