Scope of Work - USAID/Kenya

Internet Services

OVERVIEW:

The United States Agency for International Development  (USAID) office in Nairobi Kenya,  is a US Government Agency that gives assistance in social, economic and humanitarian activities in Kenya.

PURPOSE

USAID/Kenya requires the services of qualified Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide robust Internet service that will adequately provide Internet connectivity to its four hundred networked computer hosts. The requested service will have adequate redundancy at critical network points and at all other necessary levels so as to ensure un-interruptible Internet service and smooth operations at all times.

STATEMENT OF WORK

Under the direction of the Systems Administrator who is the designated cognizant technical officer (CTO) for this activity the contactor shall undertake all tasks as spelt out in the statement of work.

The contractor shall seek to understand the current cable duct, telco and other carrier infrastructure at USAID Gigiri premises by carrying out the necessary physical and communications survey at the USAID Gigiri offices where the service is required. The contractor will then come up with options of solutions that will meet USAID Nairobi’s requirements.

Due to the critical nature of the applications that are operated through this Internet link the contractor shall be required to ensure availability and required quality of this service at all times.  Any interruptions resulting in lack of service or service degradation below the Internet speed stipulated in this scope of work will result in commensurate loss of the recurrent telecommunications and Internet subscriptions fees.

The contractor shall ensure that there is a twenty four hour technical coverage of service support and should therefore be operating a 24 X 7 support center. The contractor shall provide any required hardware; IP addresses, telecommunications applications or software upgrade including any licenses that may be required to keep the service operational after the service has been commissioned.

After the service has been commissioned the contractor shall bear any installation costs that may be required to keep the quality of the service acceptable to USAID. Further, the contactor will be responsible for additional costs arising from technical modifications, change of Internet provisioning technologies or change in agreements of the contractor and her partners.

Required Bandwidth

Minimum uplink speed to North American Internet sites 20,480 kbps (Committed), minimum downlink Speed from North American sites 20,480 kbps (Committed). This service could be offered through any technologies that will meet these requirements. USAID requires Internet uptime of 99.999 so as to meet our business requirements.

In order to ensure adequate redundancy the ISP will provide a hot backup tail circuit either through fiber or wireless capable of delivering the stipulated bandwidth and configured in a manner that minimizes on operational costs, additionally USAID requires efficient carrier redundancy at all carrier levels including to the local ISP’s upstream provider.

Service Monitoring

USAID will use various telecommunications tools including commercial web based speed measurement tools to do on the spot Internet speed measurements to hosts to the United States of America

Evaluation Criteria

Contractor Capability

The contractor shall include a narrative to demonstrate capability in the following four areas.

Ø  (1) Technical Capability – Applicants shall demonstrate their technical capability in provisioning Internet services through a variety of telecommunication infrastructure. Proof of capability in having provisioned similar services to a large enterprise is required. Proven ability to provision Internet services using a variety of telecommunications tools, software platforms, servers to achieve a high quality of service is required. USAID may require a test circuit for assessment of the contractor capability.

30 points

Ø  (2) Past Performance – The applicants shall be required to submit information on similar tasks carried out in the past three years.  USAID will asses past performance based on background checks where such Internet service has been provisioned.  Scopes of work for such tasks must be provided.  All the necessary terms of reference and the contact information of the organization where the services were provided must be submitted.  This information may be presented in short paragraph form.

40 points

Ø  (4) Project Financial and Management Issues- The applicants shall demonstrate knowledge of sound management, operations management, project planning, ability to handle logistical issues and the ability to transact with bank credits.

30 points

Award Criteria

USAID will choose the best technical proposal that meets or exceeds our specifications.

Deliverables

The contractor shall provide the required bulk Internet service through industry standard telecommunications protocols provisioned by infrastructure that guarantee bandwidth delivery, any channel equipment and software used must meet approved local telecommunication regulatory requirements.

The contractor shall provide customer premises equipment including an entry level 2800 series Cisco router that will provide Ethernet network service to the USAID point of presence (POP) router, this 2800 series router should provide two Ethernet ports to connect the ISP circuit to the core network and the other to connect a monitoring device, additionally the contractor should provide  documentation for the installed infrastructure including but not limited to network numbers, passwords and configurations. 

The contractor shall provide any test tools that may include hardware or software components. Logon account details for monitoring of critical devices, services, traffic flow, latency and speeds.

The contractor shall provide contact details and professional qualifications of all personnel who will carry out the installation, commission and operate the service, additionally the contractor shall articulate the operations of their help desk ensuring that escalation procedures are well defined. The contractor shall clearly articulate how their 24 X 7 network operations center would work in meeting USAID,s high availability network requirements.

The contractor shall service and test any back up communications link at the contractor’s costs including any access circuit charges that may be necessary for the provision of this service.

Warranty

The contractor shall provide a twelve months warranty for any new equipment supplied under this contract. The warranty shall cover maintenance, repair and/or replacement of any failing aspects of the new components of this installation.

Delivery

The USAID Contracting Officer's Technical Representative (COTR) in charge of this activity will receive, inspect and certify any equipment including documentation, configurations and copies of all software.

Deployment / Installation

The contractor shall install the Internet infrastructure necessary to operate this service and hand over all the necessary information to the USAID / Kenya Systems Administrator. The contractor shall also install and commission any other equipment and any other accessories including, but not limited to, items such as power supplies, network numbers, network cards, telecommunications applications, patch cables, electrical wiring and minimal cabling including all necessary accessories to make the required Internet service fully operational.

Training

The contractor shall provide on the job training on, setting up, operation and use of the Internet service. The training must cover but will not be limited to, all the aspects of the Internet service management and any necessary maintenance of the service.

Delivery Period

The contractor shall commence work immediately upon signing the contract with USAID for the provision of the Internet service.

The contractor shall provide the service for a period of twelve months.  
Completion / Termination. It is expected to be for a one year period with the possibility of extension depending, take note that USAID can terminate the contract at any time due to nonperformance.