1. Introduction
This Market Survey/Request for Information (RFI) is issued in accordance with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Acquisition Management System (AMS) Section T3.2.1.2.1 Market Research and Analysis. Interested parties are advised that:
- This is not a Screening Information Request (SIR) or Request for Proposal (RFP);
- The FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals;
- Any costs associated with responding to this Market Survey/RFI are incurred solely at the interested party's expense;
- FAA, at its sole discretion, may contact one, some, all, or none of the respondents to the Market Survey/RFI to request additional information;
- Vendor responses to this Market Survey/RFI and any follow-up inquiries by the Government are for informational purposes only and do not constitute a promise or obligation of future business with the FAA; and
- Responding to this Market Survey/RFI is not required to participate in any future RFIs, market surveys, RFPs, or SIRs related to this requirement, if any are issued.
2. Purpose
This is a Market Survey/RFI for the draft Unified Communications Enterprise (UCE) requirements. The purpose of this Market Survey/RFI is to gain market insights and capability, determine the possible extent of competition, and estimate costs to complete the requirements as listed at Attachment 1 Draft UCE Statement of Work (SOW) and Attachment 2 Draft UCE Specifications.
3. Description of Requirement
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a requirement to continue the migration to an integrated enterprise architecture that began under the FAA Administrative Voice Enterprise Service (FAVES) program, with the objective of more fully leveraging Unified Communications (UCE) capabilities to enhance workforce connectivity and productivity. UCE will also replace the Conference Control System (CCS) at the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) in Warrenton, Virginia. Going forward, the FAA may require CCS capabilities at other locations.
4. Market Survey/RFI Instructions
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is performing market research to determine if there are potential vendors who can provide cost effective and demonstrable solutions to UCE. Vendors who wish to respond to this Market Survey/RFI must submit their responses in accordance with the following instructions:
All responses to Sections 4.1, 4.2, and 5 must be organized in the same manner as the questions with each response referring to the section and if applicable question letter number (i.e 4.1a, 4.1b, 5.1a)
4.1 Company Information
Provide company information: Company Name, DUNS number and CAGE Code, Universal Reference Locator (URL) for the company's website, company point-of-contact (POC), and POC phone number and e-mail address.
a. Indicate whether your company qualifies as a small business relative to the NAICS codes identified in Section 5 of this Market Survey.
b. If you qualify as a small business relative to one of the NAICS codes in Section 6 of this Market Survey, please indicate if you have any specific designation such as 8a, HubZone, Woman-owned Small Business (WOSB), Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Business (SDVOSB), etc.
4.2 Background/Past Experience
Provide the following information on two (2) similar projects in an environment of similar scale to the draft SOW completed within the last five (5) years for which the responder was a Prime or Sub-Contractor.
a. The name and value of each project;
b. The name, address, telephone and email address for point of contact;
c. A description of each project (manufacturers and models), types of services, applications, number of facilities, number of users
d. Describe challenges and successes for each identified project; and
e. Your company's role and services provided for each project.
5 FAA Market Survey/RFI Questions for Industry Feedback
5.1 Potential Solutions
Identify what platform(s) (i.e., manufacturer and name of the product line) you would use to meet the UCE requirements and indicate whether it is a proprietary or commercially available solution. Identify the number of users/dial lines that it is capable of supporting.
a. The FAA currently uses Microsoft Teams for audio and video conferences, collaboration, and information sharing. Please indicate whether your solution to UCE would be based on Teams. If not, identify: (1) the tools that you would use for these functions and whether they would be integrated with Teams or whether they would replace Teams; and (2) any additional capabilities and features that your proposed tools provide relative to Teams.
5.2 Operations and Life Cycle Management
a. Identify the number of field technicians you currently have on staff to support the operation and maintenance of Unified Communications systems. Separately identify the counts for employees and subcontractors. Identify the geographic footprint they cover within a two-hour drive time.
b. In a typical calendar year, specific to the operation of Unified Communications systems, what is the percentage of trouble tickets that are resolved remotely by your Enterprise Operations Control Center versus tickets that require a technician on-site?
c. Describe your product lifecycle management strategy and how you perform upgrades and asset management of an existing system. To what extent is operational downtime required when upgrades are implemented? When required by the obsolescence of the existing system, are technology refreshes typically provided as part of a Managed Service (included in recurring charges) or are they handled as a separate non-recurring charge?
5.3 Conference Control Systems
a. Describe your experience implementing and maintaining high-capacity, high-availability voice conferencing control systems, including the manufacturers and models of the deployed systems. Identify the number of pre-programmed voice conferences supported, the number of participants per call, and the total number of calls allowed at any given time.
b. Describe the scalability of your voice conferencing control system, including the ability to add more consoles and operator positions.
c. Describe how your system handles intrafacility and interfacility calls, including operator ease of use and the visual/audio indicators provided. Describe the human/machine interface for making and answering calls, system indicators for when calls are on hold, line in use, and other features provided to enhance the operability of the system.
d. To what extent can your system's interface be customized for operator preferences, such as text size, button layout, and color scheme?
5.4 Security
a. For any Unified Communications solutions that you have implemented and/or operated for Federal Government agencies, what was the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) impact level / Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)-199 Security Categorization (Low, Moderate, or High) for the systems?
b. What do you believe are the greatest cybersecurity threats to Unified Communications Systems and what measures can be taken to mitigate those threats?
5.5 Industry Feedback on Draft Requirements
a. Please review the attached drafts of the UCE Statement of Work and Technical Specification. Are there any requirements that are potential cost drivers? If so, please identify the specific requirements and recommend revisions to make them less prescriptive or less cost impacting.
b. Please provide possible solutions and approaches that may currently exist in the marketplace, along with information on best commercial practices or concepts for delivering the service in question.
c. Provide information on Commercial practices (e.g., licensing restrictions, licensing restrictions upon termination, limitation of liability, retention of data from databases, etc.). A copy of a license agreement if applicable.
5.6 Available Contracts
a. Please identify all GSA or other GWAC contracts or MOAs (such as eFAST) that your company holds and are applicable to this type of work. Based on the GSA contracts your company holds, which SIN(s), or Pool(s) would you recommend are applicable for this type of work? Additionally, identify the Performance Period end dates for your currently held GSA, GWAC, and eFAST contracts.
5.7 Statement of Work (SOW) Feedback
a. Provide feedback on the SOW requirements. Please list any challenges or potential performance roadblocks related to fulfilling the SOW requirements and any suggestions for improving the SOW requirements language.
6 NAICS Code Feedback
The contemplated North American Industry Classification Codes System (NAICS) codes for this requirement are:
- 811210 Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintanence and
- 517810 All Other Telecommunications
Recommendations for additional NAICS Codes, with supporting rationale, are welcomed.
7 Current Contracts
UCE is a new requirement. The UCE requirement builds upon the following current contracts:
- FAA Administrative Voice Enterprise Services (FAVES), Contract number: DTFAWA-10-D-00003; Contractor: General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT)
- Conference Control System Warrenton (CCS-W) Sustainment, Contract number: 693KA8-21-C-00004; Contractor: Frequentis USA
8 Projected UCE Solicitation Release
The FAA anticipates releasing a solicitation for the UCE requirements in the Third Quarter of FY 2025. The FAA is under no obligation to meet the projected solicitation release window.
9 Industry Response Parameters
The following parameters apply to the submission of responses to this Market Survey:
- Responses to this Market Survey/RFI must contain UCE Market Survey Response [company name] in the subject line of the e-mail. The Market Survey/RFI response file name should be identical to the email subject line.
- Responses to this Market Survey/RFI must not exceed 25 pages in total.
- Files comprising the response to the Market Survey/RFI must be compatible with MS Office 365. No other form of submission will be accepted.
- Submissions must include the following information for one or more points of contact for the respondent: name, title, telephone number, and e-mail address.
- To the extent that information submitted in response to this Market Survey/RFI is proprietary or otherwise confidential commercial information, the vendor MUST CLEARLY MARK that portion of the response that contains the proprietary/confidential information with a restrictive legend and must provide justification to the FAA of such designation if requested. To aid the FAA, please segregate proprietary/confidential information. Proprietary or otherwise confidential commercial information will be for the sole use of the FAA and will be treated appropriately with regards to the markings. This paragraph in no way alters the FAA's obligations under existing law, however, including any duties owed by the FAA under the Freedom of Information Act. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.
- All responses must be submitted in writing and in the English language. Oral responses to this Market Survey/RFI will not be accepted. Page size must be 8-1/2 by 11 inches with one-inch margins. The text font must be in Times New Roman 12-point. Please note that the FAA email server restricts file sizes to ten (10) megabytes per email. Larger files must be submitted in more than one email.
Written questions on this Market Survey / RFI must be submitted to Austin Francis, Contracting Officer at austin.w.francis@faa.gov.
Responses are requested no later than 3 pm. EST., November 8, 2024 to Austin Francis, Contracting Officer, austin.w.francis@faa.gov.
Attachment 1: UCE Draft SIR - Section C - Statement of Work
Attachment 2: UCE Draft SIR Attachment J-1 Technical Specification
Attachment 3: UCE Market Survey Attachment 3 NonCCS Site List
Attachment 4: UCE Draft SIR - Attachment J-6 UCE Workload Volume Statistics
Attachment 5: UCE Draft SIR - Attachment J-0 UCE Overview
Attachment 6: UCE Draft SIR - Attachment J-5 - UCE Tailored Security Controls Based on NIST 800-53 Rev5
(End of Announcement)
