Tim Bensch, Business Promotion Consultants, Inc., 4005 Penn Belt Place, Forestville, MD 20747 Tel: 301-967-7930; Fax: 301-967-7391

60 -- BULGARIAN OPTICAL FIBER TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROJECT POC Tim Bensch, Business Promotion Consultants, Inc., 4005 Penn Belt Place, Forestville, MD 20747 Tel: 301-967-7930; Fax: 301-967-7391 This notice is a Request for Information (RFI) only. This is not a notice of solicitation. Business Promotion Consultants, Inc. (BPC), under contract with the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA), will be procuring on behalf of an Eastern European country an optical fiber telecommunications system for internal communications use by the state railway of that Eastern European country. Under terms of the grant agreement from the U.S. Government to the Grantee Government, optical fiber telecommunications system equipment procured is to be used on a specific 150km portion of the rail system. Under terms of the grant, each piece of equipment which will be procured must be of U.S. source and origin (i.e. at least 51% of total cost of manufacture -- componentry plus programming plus labor -- must have been manufactured/performed in the U.S.). While there is no guarantee of future business following procurements under this grant, this will be the first implementation of optical fiber technology for this Eastern European railway system organization. The railway organization has expressed an interest in eventual upgrade of their entire internal communications system as funding permits, provided that this initial implementation is successful. Accordingly, BPC is requesting information from potential suppliers who make or provide U.S. source and origin products and services for optical fiber telecommunications systems. Short (3-5 pages) capability statements or brochures are requested, as are catalogs for off-the-shelf commercial items. Specific components/services which are likely to be required include optical fiber cable, E1 channel banks, optical fiber E1 transceivers, digital key telephone systems (20 to 300 stations) which directly accept E1 trunks and perform inter-PBX routing, and system engineering services to assist with installation and to integrate similar products into existing electronic/electo-mechanical private telecommunications systems. A separate notice of solicitation will be published in the near future. No requests for solicitation documents will be accepted at this time. Information provided in response to this RFI should be sent no later than February 15, 1997 to BPC, Attn: Tim Bensch, 4005 Penn Belt Place, Forestville, MD 20747. (0015)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0255 19970121\60-0001.SOL)