U.S. Information Agency, International Broadcasting Bureau, Contracts and Procurement Division, B/PA/AC, Room 2517, 330 C St, SW, Washington, DC 20547

D -- YEAR 2000 PROGRAMMING SERVICES SOL 98casson01 DUE 042498 POC Brent Peavler, Contracting Officer, Facsimile (202) 260-0855 E-MAIL: Click here to contact the contracting officer via e-mail, bpeavler@usia.gov. The International Broadcasting Bureau intends to award a sole source contract using simplified acquisition procedures to discover and correct Year 2000 (Y2K) problems in the IBB Office of Engineering's World Operations Controller (WOC) at Washington Headquarters, and in the Local Operation Controllers (LOC) at several foreign short wave stations. The WOC is used to develop and distribute broadcast schedules for all the stations in the IBB worldwide broadcast network. At stations so equipped, the LOCs derive broadcast schedules from the WOC and operate the stations automatically. The WOC and LOCs run on DEC VAX computers employing the VMS operating system, and utilize large and complex custom designed software programs to carry out numerous specialized functions. The WOC-LOC system is mission critical, and must be ready to develop and distribute the 1999-2000 broadcast schedules by early 1999. For these reasons, the IBB intends to execute a sole source award of this Contract, under FAR Subpart 6.302-1,to the only Company deemed capable of doing the work in a timely and cost effective manner. This Company has had a continuing key roll in the development and testing of the WOC and LOCs since 1989, it has experience correcting Y2K problems in VAX-based systems, and it currently has access to programmers who wrote the original WOC and LOC software and several recent upgrades. For additional information, Contact Brent Peavler, at (202) 619-3545. This notice is not a RFP or IFB. See Numbered Note 22 (0096)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0026 19980408\D-0005.SOL)