DISA/D211, 5113 Leesburg Pike, Room 428, Falls Church, VA 22041

D -- DEFENSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS NETWORK NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK (DISN NCR MAN) DUE 041098 POC Major Al Gracia, Acquisition Manager at (703) 681-1366; Ms. Catherine Buehler, Contracting Officer at (703) 681-1637; or Mr. Peter G. Smingler, Contracting Officer at (703) 681-0526 WEB: Click here to access the DISN homepage, www.disa.mil/DISN/disnhome.html. E-MAIL: Click here to contact a DISN NCR MAN Project Contracting Officer, BuehlerC@ncr.disa.mil. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) hereby issues a Request for Information (RFI) regarding a Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) transport service designed to carry voice, data, video, plus local access voice service for the Department of Defense (DOD) in the National Capital Region (NCR). The DISN NCR MAN will be a regional part of the overall DISN-CONUS architecture; therefore, it must seamlessly interconnect with the long haul portion of DISN. As a result, this MAN must adhere to the DISN technical and security requirements. These requirements can be found at http://www.disa.mil/DISN/disnhome.html. This MAN must also interface with GSA local and long distance access. The government preference is for open systems standards, non-proprietary, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology solutions. Solutions utilizing Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology will be required to adhere to the DOD ATM Systems Specification, dated 06 FEB 98 at http://134.207.48.11/ATM_SPEC/. The geographic area of consideration includes approximately 300 different office locations spread across the District of Columbia; Montgomery and Prince George Counties in Maryland; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties in Virginia; the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Falls Church in Virginia, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The geographic area of consideration may be expanded to include some or all of the following: Fort Meade and Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, and Quantico Marine Corp Base, Virginia. Office locations vary in size from large, central locations like the Pentagon to small, isolated locations such as a recruiting station in Montgomery County. The list of office locations is not static. It changes as leases on real estate are awarded or expire and as government agencies move. Over the life of the contract the community may change significantly based on cost and other technical considerations. Some of the services stated above are currently provided through the use of Government owned switches and leased capacity located in the NCR. The current TEMPO (covers NCR) and TMP (covers Ft Belvoir) contracts support approximately 186,000 telephone lines in 300 office locations. The inclusion of Ft Meade and Andrews AFB, Maryland and Quantico Marine Corp Base, Virginia could increase the total number of lines by 10% to 30%. The current voice capacity is approximately 40% digital and 60% analog. Existing infrastructure equipment includes, but is not limited to: 5ESS switches; Nortel switches; Optical Remote Modules (ORM's); PBX's; DISN Bandwidth Managers; proprietary ISDN infrastructure equipment; customer owned Customer Premise Equipment (CPE), including Merlin analog, 1A2 Key systems and Lucent ISDN. The TEMPO and DISN -- CONUS contracts also support in an excess of 10,000 point-to-point circuits. These data circuits vary in bandwidth from sub T-1 (N by 64Kbps) to OC-3. Services sought will be subject to a measure of Government security requirements, oversight and emergency control. Some or all components of the end service (systems management centers, switches, wiring) may require installation on U.S. Government-controlled facilities. Contractor personnel working at Government facilities may be required to have a U.S. Secret level clearance. Although the future requirements for all users cannot be precisely defined, the following should be considered: 1) Transport services (voice, data, and video) able to support customers currently supported by TEMPO, TMP, and the NCR portion of DISN-CONUS. This customer base will probably grow as other users are identified. 2) Network services to include switching services, point-to-point, bandwidth management services, network management, Value Added Network (VAN), engineering support services, and end to end operation & maintenance. Technical management systems must interface electronically and seamlessly with their equivalent government systems. 3) Management services such as accurate and timely billing, electronic ordering, report generation and access, electronic inventory reporting, provisioning of CPE and related equipment (to include moves, changes, rearrangements, installations and deinstallations), voice mail, tariffed services, and a comprehensive training program. All of these systems must interface electronically and seamlessly with their equivalent government systems. It is contemplated that the proposed contract(s) will be fixed price Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity delivery and/or task order contract(s). The period of performance will depend on the technical solutions considered during acquisition strategy development. Currently, a two to three year base period with several one year option periods is envisioned. Industry is encouraged to comment on suggested contract type and term as well as lease versus purchase and straight service versus leased capacity. Respondents are invited to offer comments regarding acquisition strategy, potential technical approach to include technology insertion, use of commercial or other non-developmental items, interoperability with current and future architecture and environment, equipment compatibility over the term of the contract, identification of risk areas, ability to meet future user needs, scalability, suggested management approach, and ideas to resolve widely known industry billing problems. While it is desirable that the suggested solution is compatible with existing equipment, other alternatives will be entertained if they are more cost effective. Offerors are also requested to describe any limitations for a given geographical area of the region given the potential technical approach. This RFI is for information and planning purposes. This is not a notice of solicitation. The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this RFI or to otherwise pay for information received in response to this RFI. The Government will retain comments and information received in response to this RFI. The information provided in this notice is currently being drafted and will likely change. This information is provided to obtain industry perspectives as the Government develops its acquisition strategy, and to allow maximum time for industry to plan and develop teaming arrangements. The Point of Contact (POC) for technical issues concerning this announcement is Mr. Don Winningham, DTS-W at (703) 696-8653, Fax (703) 696-8694. The POCs for contractual issues are Ms. Sandra Spiess, Contract Specialist, DISN NCR MAN at (703) 681-1642, Fax (703) 681-0033, E-mail SpiessS@ncr.disa.mil, Ms. Catherine Buehler, Contracting Officer, DISN NCR MAN at (703) 681-1637, Fax (703) 681-0033, BuehlerC@ncr.disa.mil, and Mr. Peter G. Smingler, DISN Contracting Officer at (703) 681-0526, Fax (703) 681-6625, E-mail sminglep@ncr.disa.mil. Proprietary information should be identified as such. In order to be considered responses must be submitted no later than 10 April 1998. Responses should be sent to Sandra Spiess, DISA/D21, Skyline 5, 5111 Leesburg Pike, Suite 9000, Falls Church, VA 22041-3205. In addition to two paper copies, an electronic copy should be provided. The electronic copy should be in MS Word 6.0 or higher. Responses should include the Company Name, Street Address, City, State, nine-digit Zip Code, POC, POC telephone and facsimile numbers. If the company address includes a post office box, a complete street address should also be provided. It is contemplated that the Standard Industrial Code (SIC) 4899 will be used for determining the company's size. Sources submitting response and interested in also making a technical presentation, may arrange to do so by contacting Maj Al Gracia at (703) 681-1366, E-mail graciaa@ncr.disa.mil.***** LLLL (0070)

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