NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INTERNET WEB SITE FOR THE NWWS DRAFT REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL D -- Information Technology Services including Telecommunications The Department of Commerce(DOC)/National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Weather Service (NWS) has established an Internet Web Site for the Draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for the NOAA Weather Wire Service (NWWS) replacement system. The Universal Recosurce Locator (URL) for the home page of the Web Site is: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/oso1 The purpose of this page and associated links is to provide free and open access to this information to all those parties who may be considering proposing on this acquisition, and to allow comments to be made prior to the finalization of the solicitation documents. All comments on the RFP will be held in strict confidence by the National Weather Service. All questions requiring a response by the NWS will be made public by posting both the question and the answer on an anonymous basis on the Web site. The final RFP is scheduled to be issued during the second quarter of Fiscal 1998. The NWWS replacement system is to provide for the collection, at a central facility accessible to the NWS, of over 6000 weather products and other warnings issued by the NWS that are vital to the public health and welfare. Dissemination of these products to the NWS Weather Forecast Offices, National Centers, and to the NWS-supported State Agencies (one per state), is also part of the requirement. This requirement also includes the collection of WSR-88D Doppler weather radar products produced by some 153 NWS, DOD, and FAA radars, to be collected at a centralized location and made accessible to the NWS. The radar products requirement may be proposed either in conjunction with the NWWS replacement system or as a stand alone proposal. The current system is leased from GTE Government Systems Corporation. The system utilizes a VSAT network using C-band spread spectrum technology over a Spacenet IV satellite located at 101 West Longitude. No specific type of technology is specified for the replacement system. A key difference between the current system and the new system is that under the new system, the further dissemination of products to end users (currently approximately 1450) beyond those already described (NWS Weather Forecast Offices, National Centers, and NWS-supported State Agencies) will not be part of acquisition. Instead, this interface is intended to be a non-proprietary open architecture such that providers of various types of dissemination services (e.g., paging, Internet, cell phones, etc.) will be encouraged to service these end users in a competitive environment suited to each end user's particular needs, at reasonable prices and using off-the-shelf equipment. POC: Rubie B. King, Contract Specialist (301) 713-0839 ext. 164 or William L. Voitk, Contracting Officer (301) 713-0839 ext. 185 WEB: Click here to download a copy of the RFP, http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/oso1/. E-MAIL: Click here to contact the Contract Specialist via e-mail, Rubie.B.King@noaa.gov.

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