GSA Releases Request For Proposals for Telecommunications Services in New York City Metropolitan Area Acquisition

GSA # 9465

February 26, 1998
Contact: Bill Bearden (202) 501-1231, or
Phillip Barber (703) 610-2313

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service (FTS) today released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for provision of telecommunications services in the New York City metropolitan area. The New York City Metropolitan Area Acquisition (MAA) procurement is intended to provide up-to-date, cost effective telecommunications services to all Federal agencies and other authorized users.

The MAA program is designed to acquire telecommunications services in metropolitan areas where competition for local business services exist. The necessary conditions for conducting an MAA procurement are: the presence of a large Federal Government population, a favorable regulatory environment, and a large presence of competitive vendors. In addition to New York City, the Chicago and San Francisco metropolitan areas have been designated for MAA procurements. RFPs for those areas are scheduled for the second quarter of calendar year 1998.

The release of the New York City RFP is the second segment of the MAA procurement process. Pre-qualification is the first segment where vendors are evaluated on their ability to meet technical and management requirements stated in the Request for Qualification Statements (RQS), which was released on November 26, 1997. The pre-qualification procedure is a continuing process. The date for receipt of qualification statements for initial pre-qualification consideration is today, February 26, 1998.

The pre-qualification procedure was suggested during discussions with industry regarding the overall FTS strategy. Its purpose is to relieve potential vendors of the necessity to submit proposals for requirements that are common for all MAA procurements.

The RQS defines standard technical and management requirements necessary to provide the basic set of required telecommunications services applicable to all metropolitan areas that are or will be designated for MAA consideration. The RQS contains three mandatory technical services: switched voice, circuit switched data and dedicated transmission.

The release of the RQS followed a period during which written comments were accepted from interested parties and face-to-face meetings were conducted with telecommunications vendors. As a result of this process, significant changes were made to the final document to allow for use of commercial services and practices in response to government requirements.

In the New York City metropolitan area RFP, vendors are evaluated on pricing and area specific technical and management requirements. Comments and questions are requested by March 16, 1998. Proposals are due April 27, 1998.

The New York MAA RFP is available on the Internet at http://www.gsa.gov/maa. For additional contract specific information, call contracting officer Phillip L. Barber on (703) 610-2313.