SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Participation in the Internet 2 Affiliate Memebership andcollaboration site status
- Notice Date
- 2/7/2008
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 515210
— Cable and Other Subscription Programming
- Contracting Office
- Department of Veterans Affairs;Acquisition Management Section/00D;1615 Woodward Street;Austin TX 78772
- ZIP Code
- 78772
- Solicitation Number
- VA-200-08-RQ-0026
- Response Due
- 2/11/2008
- Archive Date
- 2/16/2008
- Point of Contact
- Kari Cozzens Contract Specialist 512-326-6494
- E-Mail Address
-
Email your questions to Contract Specialist
(kari.cozzens@va.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The Department of Veterans Affairs, Corporate Franchise Data Center - Austin, 1615 Woodward Street, Austin, TX 78772 intends a sole source award to Internet 2 for the Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology's participation in the Internet2 Affiliate Membership and collaboration site status for 12 months from date of award. Authroity to award the sole source procurement can be found at 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(3)(B), 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(3)(B), or FAR 6.302-3 (ii) To establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, or development capability to be provided by an educational or other nonprofit institution or a federally funded research and development center; or maintain active engineering, research, or development work. Internet2 is a consortium led by the higher education and research community in the U.S. that maintains an advanced high performance computer network. Its focus is to provide leading-edge network capabilities to its members and unique partnership opportunities that facilitate the development, deployment, and use of revolutionary Internet technologies, such as the (OMB) mandated Internet protocol, IPv6. A unique qualification of the Internet2 network is that is fully supports the IPv6 protocol, and provides a testing bed for VA's implementation of this new technology. Additionally, many of VA's academic affiliates as well as Federal agencies (e.g. National Institutes of Health) are members of the consortium. Connecting to the Internet2 network allows computer network traffic between VA and these institutions to travel over Internet2 rather than traversing the Internet, and may improve traffic flow to/from the Internet. Furthermore, the Internet2 network can support extremely large volumes of data transfer at very high speeds (1 Gigabit or more) not available from other Internet providers and that may be required by increasingly sophisticated and specialized multimedia applications. The consortium has projects and programs developing and testing these types of applications (e.g. telepresence) in several areas including education and healthcare. Internet2 is also working with the Federal Communications Commission on the Federal Rural Healthcare Pilot Program, an enhanced funding initiative intended to help public and non-profit health care providers construct state- and region-wide broadband networks to provide telehealth and telemedicine services. With other Federal agencies, such as Indian Health Services participating, this project may help VA improve delivery of remote healthcare services and enhance VA data sharing capabilities. Market research was conducted in the form of online searches, and contacting other Government agencies, users of the service, and the Internet2 network. The Internet2 network can support extremely large volumes of data transfer at very high speeds (1 Gigabit or more) not available over other Internet providers and that may be required by increasingly sophisticated and specialized multimedia applications. Internet2 supports other agencies such as the Indian Health Services, Federal Communications Commission, connection to which is not available through other Internet providers. Internet2 is an organization instituted primarily to support the academic and research communities in the U.S. Their mission is to provide the infrastructure to help these communities develop the new technologies and applications. The intent of VA is to use its membership in these organizations to do research and further explore new networking capabilities and applications that can be applied in VA lines of business, including healthcare delivery and education of its workforce. Formal membership may further support research projects already underway between VA staff and other Internet2 members because of enhanced network connectivity and a general awareness campaign by both VA and Internet2. Responses to this notice must be in writing and must be received by 3:00pm est on February 11, 2008. Third part firms will be considered only if responding with clear and convincing evidence that the firm has been granted rights to provide the services being procured. The determination to open competition based on responses is solely with in the discretion of the Government. If a solicitation is issued, no additional synopsis will be published. Responses should be emailed to kari.cozzens@va.gov.
- Record
- SN01503104-W 20080209/080207224229 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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