Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF NOVEMBER 02, 2002 FBO #0335
MODIFICATION

D -- Request for Information for Communication Services IJPS Network

Notice Date

10/31/2002
 

Notice Type

Modification
 

Contracting Office

Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Acquisition and Grants Office, SSMC4 - Room 7601/OFA61 1305 East West Highway, 7th Floor, Silver Spring, MD, 20910
 

ZIP Code

20910
 

Solicitation Number

Reference-Number-NAAJF400-3-10002
 

Response Due

11/8/2002
 

Archive Date

11/23/2002
 

Point of Contact

Edith Jones, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 713-3478 x171, Fax (301) 713-4155,
 

E-Mail Address

Edith.L.Jones@noaa.gov
 

Description

The due date for responses to this RFI is extended from November 1, 2002, to November 8, 2002. Request for Information (RFI) of Communications Services I. INTRODUCTION: The Department of Commerce (DOC)'s Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) program will commence operational support for a new joint program for the exchange of weather satellite data with the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) in October of 2004. This RFI in intended to solicit industry input for telecommunication services that will help secure turnkey communication services to support the program in October of 2003. The telecommunication services will be required to connect satellite ground systems control centers located in Suitland (Maryland - USA) and Darmstadt (Federal Republic of Germany) II. SCOPE: DOC is seeking information that will assist in the development and deployment of a telecommunications networking services designated as "IJPS Network" in Figure 1. The telecommunications services shall encompass all necessary Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) and transcontinental services that will be required to provision the services at the DOC facility in Suitland and at a EUMETSAT provided facility in Darmstadt (Germany). DOC also expects the telecommunications carrier to support hardware installation, software installation, and support for management features of all equipment and devices proposed. The IJPS network will be used to transport the weather satellite data indicated in Table 1. Table 1 provides a listing that characterizes the different data streams of weather data that will be exchanged between Suitland and Darmstadt. All communications exchanges listed shall involve duplex communications. The Interface Type field in Table 1 defines the interface between the telecommunication carrier's own-provided customer premise equipment and the respective Network Operation Center (NOC) in the respective organizations (DOC and EUMETSAT). This interface shall be considered a local interface at the respective facilities for the sake of the document. Specifically, this RFI seeks the following information: " Ideas and suggestions that provide alternative approaches to designing, developing, and acquiring the IJPS network. " Technical feasibility of the alternative approaches proposed. " Approximate cost information for alternatives (Rough Order of Magnitude Estimates). " Provisioning Schedules. III. REQUIREMENTS: This section enumerates the high-level functional requirements for IJPS network. " IJPS Network shall provide commercial-grade data communications capabilities within the network using industry standard network components and protocols. The potential of adding bandwidth-on-demand services for some data streams is highly desirable and respondents are encouraged to share any existing and future capabilities they have. " IJPS Network shall evolve to maintain a technology and communications service edge with state of the art commercial services to the maximum extent practical. The operator's network shall offer DOC the flexibility to utilize new services. " IJPS Network shall be a turnkey fully integrated system communications network solution proposed by the respondents. DOC will provide access to its own DOC facilities (in Suitland) and EUMETSAT facilities (in Darmstadt). DOC does not intend to negotiate with local access carriers or communications equipment vendors. For the purposes of this RFI, assume a single invoice with supporting details will be acceptable to DOC. " IJPS Network shall support mission critical functions and provide the highest levels of reliability and availability including network transport and access diversity, and rapid response time for DOC outages. In formulating responses, each respondent shall describe the reliability and availability characteristics of each alternative included in their response. It is essential that the respondent include a clear definition of availability including a description of the tools that will be used to measure it. IJPS network shall be operated on a 24X7 basis for 365 days a year by the respondent. " The local interfaces to the IJPS network are based on a TCP/IP protocol suite and a 100 BT interface as indicated in table 1. The applications used for data streams exchanges between the local interface and the IJPS network will use a TCP/IP socket connection. The IJPS network shall not introduce delays to degrade the performance of the local interface for TCP/IP operations as the data is transported between Darmstadt and Suitland. The IJPS network shall have the buffer capability to handle TCP re-transmissions in case of a communications outage. " While the data streams are presented as separate data flows entries in Table 1, DOC does not have a preference if all streams are treated as separate communications channels on the IJPS Network between Suitland and Darmstadt, or considered as an aggregate bandwidth with each of different streams channelized into a virtual channel. In the latter case, the DOC contractor's network shall provide a prioritization capability for a DOC specified virtual channel. The IJPS network shall provide the ability to collect and measures for performance data on per virtual channel basis as well as an aggregate one channel basis. " The IJPS Network shall be built on a completely dedicated network and shall not use the public Internet. Private IP networking services are not discouraged provided that the respondent presents guarantees and service manageability options that can be collected in compliance of meeting the defined performed criteria or Service Level Agreement (SLA). DOC encourages respondent to present alternative concepts and to describe the feasibility of each alternative and the design tradeoffs involved as matched against the functional requirements. The response shall include a diagram with proposed network configuration and CPE at each location (Suitland and Darmsatdt). The DOC contractor shall provide all performance specifications to the delivery of the communication services including network and system availability, time to restore services, and performance evaluation criteria. DOC expects the contractor to also discuss their performance evaluation criteria. " Encryption shall not be required for transport of DOC data; however, DOC requires a level of trust on the carrier network that is not going to compromise any data transfer over the IJPS Network. " The respondent shall provide ROM estimates for the non-recurring and annual recurring using for the IJPS network. Assume a 3 year guaranteed contract. " The respondent shall provide estimated provisioning schedules with the time it takes for a service to be provisioned. The provisioning time shall include local -access provisioning during which the local loop is connected to the customer site, and service provisioning, during which the service is configured and turned on the respondent's carrier network. In the response, a respondent shall include any additional costs for expedited provisioning. " A contact phone number and e-mail address shall be included with the response as a point of contact for the DOC evaluation team to discuss IV CONTACT INFORMATION: The Technical Point of Contact (TPOC) for this RFI: Les Shipley NOAA, E/OSD3, Room 3308, FB4 5200 Auth Drive Suitland, MD 20746 Les.Shipley@noaa.gov Please submit response via e-mail in Corel WordPerfect format by 5:00 PM on November 1st, 2002, to the TPOC. You may also submit supplemental hardcopy materials (3 copies each) to the TPOC.
 

Place of Performance

Address: U.S. Department of Commerce/NOAA, NESDIS Office of System Development, Federal Building 4 - Room 3308, Suitland, Maryland

Zip Code: 20746

Country: USA
 

Record

SN00196979-W 20021102/021101073726 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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