The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) is the Nation's federal health sciences university and is committed to excellence in military medicine and public health during peace and war. We provide the Nation with health professionals dedicated to career service in the Department of Defense and the United States Public Health Service and with scientists who serve the common good. We serve the uniformed services and the Nation as an outstanding academic health sciences center with a worldwide perspective for education, research, service, and consultation; we are unique in relating these activities to military medicine, disaster medicine, and military medical readiness. USU is located in Bethesda, MD on the grounds of the Naval Support Activity Bethesda. USU intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with Inflexion Management Sciences LLC, located in Silver Spring, MD for Engineering Professional services to install services and maintain the installed distributed antenna system (DAS) in USUHS building D location and for Engineering Professional services to service and maintain the installed distributed antenna system (DAS) in the 10 USUHS buildings and AFRRI buildings. These equipment and services will be procured in accordance with the procedures of FAR Part 12-Commercial Items and FAR Part 13-Simplified Acquisition Procedures. Sole source determination is made in accordance with: FAR Part 13.106-1 Soliciting Competition (b) Soliciting from a single source (1) For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold, contracting officers may solicit from one source if the contracting officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available. The mission of USU is to provide the highest quality education programs in the health sciences to those selected individuals who demonstrate dedication to a health profession career in the Uniformed Services. To do so, we need to ensure full operation of the existing communications platforms. The 5Bars cellular distributed antenna system is one of these communications platforms. The DAS is a complex system consisting of interfaces to four commercial cellular carrier systems (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless), repeater equipment, fiber cabling, coax cabling, and antennas distributed throughout our buildings. Over the last 2 years, we experienced complaints from D building staff of not being able to receive cellular coverage for all cellular carriers. The personnel in our D building were unable to use cellular service for their mobile devices to communicate over voice, text or data, losing an entire communications platform. Without mobile communications, personnel are tied to desks where they can log in and access data, and use desk phones. In addition, over a period of time, we experienced outages where our AFRRI buildings lost all cellular coverage for all cellular carriers. We contacted the company that installed the system to request support to resolve the issue. While the service was down, there was intermittent or no cellular coverage throughout the AFRRI buildings. The personnel in the AFRRI buildings were unable to use cellular service for the mobile devices to communicate over voice, text or data, losing an entire communications platform. Without mobile communications, personnel are tied to desks where they can log in and access data, and use desk phones. Inflexion Management Sciences LLC is the company that installed the original system and our infrastructure. They understand the complete system architecture/infrastructure and what we need to extend services to D building. This will allow them to install, troubleshoot, maintain, isolate any problems, resolve any issues, in order to have a smooth installation without any interruptions andprovide maintenance to all of USUHS. A company unfamiliar with the existing architecture will require many hours to learn the architecture and will be unable to respond in such a timely manner. We will potentially lose valuable weeks and perhaps months while they familiarize themselves with our infrastructure. Inflexion also has a full understanding of the interfaces with the cellular carriers and the agreements that USUHS has in place with the cellular carriers for the services that each cellular carrier is to provide to USUHS. Taking the above reasons into consideration Inflexion Management Sciences LLC is the only known source that can provided the requested equipment and services. This is not a request for quotes and a solicitation package will not be issued. Sources interested in responding to this requirement must be able to provide compelling evidence that they can provide the abovementioned requirement as specified. A determination by the government not to compete this proposed contractual action based upon responses received is solely within the discretion of the government. Responses must be received via email (
[email protected]) by 10:00 a.m. EST on July 9, 2016.