Inactive

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics, Technology Acquisition Center (TAC), located at 23 Christopher Way, Eatontown NJ entered into a contract on a basi... Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition and Logistics, Technology Acquisition Center (TAC), located at 23 Christopher Way, Eatontown NJ entered into a contract on a basis of other than full and open competition for Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) services in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. This effort was awarded on a sole source basis. The period of performance will be a 3.5 month base period from September 30, 2021 to January 14, 2022. The TAC has awarded a sole source, firm-fixed price contract to Frontier Communications Corporation 3 High Ridge Park Stamford, Ct 06905. Any inquiries shall be submitted to Joshua.McGarry@va.gov and Brett.Schwerin@va.gov with the synopsis number, 36C10B21C0020, as the subject line. The Points of Contact (POCs) for this action are Joshua McGarry, Contract Specialist, Joshua.McGarry@va.gov and Brett Schwerin, Contracting Officer, Brett.Schwerin@va.gov. JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION 1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724 2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for issuance of a new firm-fixed priced contract with Frontier Communications Corp. (Frontier) for Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) services. 3. Description of Supplies or Services: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information and Technology (OI&T), Telecommunications Provisioning Office - Local Exchange Carrier (TPO-LEC), has a requirement to provide LEC services at 85 Service Delivery Points (SDPs) in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. The services include plain old telephone services (POTS) lines, Centrex, T-1 Digital Switched Service (DSS), Primary Rate ISDN (PRI), Direct Inward Dialing (DID) / Direct Outbound Dialing (DOD) blocks of 20, Metro Ethernet (multiple speeds) with feature sets for each of the required services specific to the location. The period of performance will be June 15, 2021 to January 14, 2022. The value for this proposed action is $971,980.44. 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is Section 41 U.S.C.3304(a)(1) as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1 entitled, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. 5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on Market Research, as documented in Section 8 of this Justification, the proposed source is Frontier located at 3 High Ridge Park, Stamford, CT 06905, as it is the only source capable of providing the required continuous LEC services in the time specified. The requirement of this proposed effort covers a large portion of geographically disparate locations where Veterans receive treatment and care. Frontier is the only source with the existing infrastructure and connectivity to those locations that can provide uninterrupted and seamless services to the required VA Service Delivery Points (SDPs). A highlight of the SDPs include James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital which has 415 main hospital beds and 118 nursing home units, 34 clinics for mental health, dental, outpatient services, 12 Veteran centers, three national cemeteries, and two primary care annexes. Frontier already has an established telecommunications network and ran cable to these locations. This network and the associated cables are proprietary to Frontier. As indicated in market research, Frontier does not resell these services. As such, any potential source other than Frontier would have to establish its own telecommunications network and cabling to provide the required services. Based on historical data, and acknowledging new activation timelines range widely from vendor to vendor, VA estimates that it would take another source a minimum of seven months to establish service to the required locations. Specifically, the vendor would have to design the system/infrastructure for all of the existing SDPs. This includes performing site surveys by deploying technicians to each SDP to inventory existing outdoor technology, indoor cable paths, conduit capacities and telecommunications room readiness. VA estimates a minimum cost of $425,000.00 to $850,000.00, based on historical data, to conduct site surveys and install services at the 85 geographically disparate sites. It would take approximately two months for the site surveys and once these preparatory services are completed, the vendor must then execute upon the planning activities to include the potential physical tasks of converting each SDP to its network; VA estimates this to be an additional three months to complete. The potential physical tasks include, but are not limited to, installing conduit, digging trenches, adding new demarcation points, and connecting services. Additionally, the potential awardee must also act as the agent for the VA to obtain the telephone numbers from the incumbent, which based on historical experience could take upwards of 84 days from the date of award to the first incidence of service activity. This estimated delay of at least seven months is unacceptable as VA would be without service during that time. As such, VA would have to maintain the existing infrastructure as these critical services cannot be shut off during any potential transition. The cost estimate above does not contain the duplicative costs of ensuring the existing network is supported. Failure to procure the services as proposed would significantly increase the risk to VA in fulfilling its mission of providing care to the Veteran. Veterans in these remote areas are additionally at an increased risk as there is a continually growing reliance on telehealth medicine. The interruption or cessation of these services would significantly impact the ability for Veterans to call their medical care providers to schedule appointments, check on medications, participate in scheduled Telehealth appointments, and receive COVID-19 vaccines would be, at minimum, severely hampered. It is likely, however, that Veterans would be cut off from accessing healthcare completely which would cause catastrophic medical events and potentially death. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government s requirements. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR 5.201. Any proposals that are received shall be evaluated. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: Although market research has indicated no competition for this current requirement, the Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the marketplace that would enable future actions to be competed. This proposed action will provide seven months of essential telecommunication connectivity. This time will allow VA to structure requirements and conduct additional market research, solicit, and award a long-term solution that includes the SDPs described in paragraph 3 above, along with additional SDPs that OI&T needs to aggregate to support VA s Strategic Sourcing mandate. The requirements for this longer-term contract solution are currently in draft form and are being actively validated by OI&T. VA currently anticipates the ability to award this long-term contract solution in the first quarter of FY2022. 8. Market Research: Based on market research conducted in May 2021, it was determined that only Frontier has the current ability to provide the aforementioned LEC services for the specific required SDPs in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Specifically, on April 30, 2021 a Sources Sought Notice/Request for Information (RFI) was posted to Contracting Opportunities page. Two responses were received, one from Frontier and a second from John O Bryan, LLC. John O Bryan was determined to not be technical acceptable by the VA technical representative. The RFI response from John O Bryan, LLC did not show evidence that it can provide the required services, nor did John O Bryan, LLC provide a plan on how it plans to provide the required services. On May 6, 2021 the Contract Specialist also inquired with a Frontier representative and asked them if Frontier resells the services at the SDPs on this action, Frontier s response was that they do not resell the services. Based on this market research and the rationale provided in paragraph 5 the Government s technical experts have determined that Frontier is the only source that can meet the Government s immediate requirements. Additional market research was conducted via RFI to NLEC-NG vendors on May 14, 2021. In response to this RFI, one response was received which was found to be technically acceptable. Though this response from AT&T was found to be technically acceptable, no source other than Frontier is currently able to provide the required continuous LEC services in the timeframe required or is able to avoid the time and duplicative cost outlined in Section 5 of this justification. 9. Other Facts: None. 10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Date: __________________________ Sr. Telecomm Specialist Signature: ______________________ 11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on analysis of the proposal against the Independent Government Cost Estimate and past historical prices paid for the same and/or similar services. Date: __________________________ Contracting Officer Signature: ______________________ 12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Date:____________________________ Procuring Contracting Officer Signature:________________________ Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of Frontier LEC services on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the statutory authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition. Date: ____________ Signature: _________________________________ Advocate for Competition Technology Acquisition Center Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics