HomeMy WebLinkAboutRFP - 8891 BROADBAND INTERNET BANDWIDTHRFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth Page 1 of 7
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL #8891
BROADBAND INTERNET BANDWIDTH
The City of Fort Collins is requesting proposals from qualified firms to purchase and implement
all the necessary services for internet bandwidth for an FTTP Broadband Network. The City
intends to select a minimum of two (2) internet bandwidth service providers under this RFP. It is
the intent of the City to provide these services to each residence and business in the community
through a phased network construction program that will begin in mid-2018 and be completed in
late-2020.
As part of the City’s commitment to Sustainable Purchasing, proposals submission via
email is preferred. Proposals shall be submitted in a single Microsoft Word or PDF file
under 20MB and e-mailed to: purchasing@fcgov.com. If electing to submit a hard copy
proposal we require one (1) hard copy and one (1) electronic copy on a jump drive to be
received at the City of Fort Collins' Purchasing Division, 215 North Mason St., 2nd floor, Fort
Collins, Colorado 80524. Proposals must be received before 3:00 p.m. (our clock) on
April 4, 2019 and referenced as Proposal No. 8891. If delivered, they are to be sent to 215
North Mason Street, 2nd Floor, Fort Collins, Colorado 80524. If mailed, the address is P.O. Box
580, Fort Collins, 80522-0580. Please note, additional time is required for bids mailed to the PO
Box to be received at the Purchasing Office.
The City encourages all Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) to submit proposals in
response to all requests for proposals. No individual or business will be discriminated against
on the grounds of race, color, sex, or national origin. It is the City’s policy to create a level
playing field on which DBEs can compete fairly and to ensure nondiscrimination in the award
and administration of all contracts.
All questions should be submitted, in writing via email, to Gerry Paul, Purchasing Director
at gspaul@fcgov.com, with a copy to Project Manager, Brad Ward, at bward@fcgov.com,
no later than 5:00 PM MST (our clock) on March 27, 2019. Please format your e-mail to include:
RFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth in the subject line. Questions received after this
deadline may not be answered. Responses to all questions submitted before the deadline will be
addressed in an addendum and posted on the Rocky Mountain E-Purchasing System webpage.
Rocky Mountain E-Purchasing System hosted by Bidnet
A copy of the RFP may be obtained at http://www.bidnetdirect.com/colorado/city-of-fort-collins.
This RFP has been posted utilizing the following Commodity Code(s):
72523 Fiber Optics and Interconnect Components
918-28 Computer Hardware Consulting
918-30 Computer Network Consulting, Network Consulting
918-95 Telecommunications Consulting
920-37 Networking Services (Including Installation and Maintenance)
RFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth Page 2 of 7
Public Viewing Copy: The City is a governmental entity subject to the Colorado Open Records
Act, C.R.S. §§ 24-72-200.1 et seq. (“CORA”). Any proposals submitted hereunder are subject
to public disclosure by the City pursuant to CORA and City ordinances. Firms may submit one
(1) additional complete proposal clearly marked “FOR PUBLIC VIEWING.” In this version of the
proposal, the Firm may redact text and/or data that it deems confidential or proprietary pursuant
to CORA. Such statement does not necessarily exempt such documentation from public
disclosure if required by CORA, by order of a court of appropriate jurisdiction, or other
applicable law. Generally, under CORA trade secrets, confidential commercial and financial
data information is not required to be disclosed by the City. Proposals may not be marked
“Confidential” or ‘Proprietary’ in their entirety. All provisions of any contract resulting from
this request for proposal will be public information.
New Firms: The City requires new Firms receiving awards from the City to fill out and submit an
IRS form W-9 and to register for Direct Deposit (Electronic) payment. If needed, the W-9 form
and the Firm Direct Deposit Authorization Form can be found on the City’s Purchasing website
at www.fcgov.com/purchasing under Firm Reference Documents. Please do not submit with
your proposal.
Sales Prohibited/Conflict of Interest: No officer, employee, or member of City Council, shall
have a financial interest in the sale to the City of any real or personal property, equipment,
material, supplies or services where such officer or employee exercises directly or indirectly any
decision-making authority concerning such sale or any supervisory authority over the services to
be rendered. This rule also applies to subcontracts with the City. Soliciting or accepting any gift,
gratuity favor, entertainment, kickback or any items of monetary value from any person who has
or is seeking to do business with the City of Fort Collins is prohibited.
Collusive or Sham Proposals: Any proposal deemed to be collusive or a sham proposal will
be rejected and reported to authorities as such. Your authorized signature of this proposal
assures that such proposal is genuine and is not a collusive or sham proposal.
The City of Fort Collins reserves the right to reject any and all proposals and to waive any
irregularities or informalities.
Utilization of Award by Other Agencies: The City of Fort Collins reserves the right to allow
other state and local governmental agencies, political subdivisions, and/or school districts to
utilize the resulting award under all terms and conditions specified and upon agreement by all
parties. Usage by any other entity shall not have a negative impact on the City of Fort Collins in
the current term or in any future terms.
Sincerely,
Gerry Paul
Purchasing Director
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City of Fort Collins
Request for Proposals (RFP) #8891
for
Broadband Internet Bandwidth
I. Section 1 – Project Background
Fort Collins is nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and alongside the banks of
the Cache La Poudre River. With an estimated population of 170, 000 (approximately 70,000
premises), Fort Collins is among the nation’s fastest growing metropolitan areas. The City
includes many assets and amenities that provide a competitive advantage including: Colorado
State University, abundant natural resources and agricultural land, highly educated and creative
workforce, a historic downtown, and many miles of trails, parks and bike paths. Fort Collins has
one of the highest rates of patents per capita in the world with a major research institution –
Colorado State University – a cluster of federal laboratories and such high-tech companies as
Hewlett-Packard, AMD, Intel and Broadcom.
During the Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO) community outreach in 2014, the community
prioritized and identified a need to address the lack of reliable, universal and affordable
broadband services. The City of Fort Collins addressed the broadband situation by identifying
the following strategic objective in the 2015/2016 & 2018 Strategic Plans:
“Strategic Objective 3.7 –Deploy reliable, high-speed internet services throughout the
community.”
The overall objective is to bring reliable, high speed internet to the city of Fort Collins, while
making an informed decision through evaluation of risk and opportunities. The FCC formally
defines broadband as internet download speed of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload
of 3Mbps or faster. However, a popular benchmark of high-speed broadband is commonly
known as gigabit speed (Gbps), and is seen in many cities across the country including
Longmont, CO. More information about the City’s Strategic Plan can be found at:
https://ourcity.fcgov.com/update-the-citys-2018-strategic-plan.
In November 2017, the citizens of Fort Collins approved ballot measure 2B, giving the City the
authority to provide high-speed broadband services to the community. In July 2018 Fort Collins
Connexion was unveiled as the City’s answer to Strategic Objective 3.7 to provide gigabit
broadband triple-play services.
II. Section 2 - Project Overview
The City of Fort Collins is soliciting proposals to purchase and implement all the necessary
services for broadband internet bandwidth for an FTTP Broadband Network. It is the intent of
the City to provide these services to each residence and business in the community through a
phased network construction program that will begin in mid-2018 and be completed in late-
2020. The City will reserve the right to purchase any, all, or none of the services that are
solicited in this RFP. Proposals must be submitted in accordance with the conditions outlined in
this Request for Proposals (RFP).
The City intends to select a minimum of two (2) internet bandwidth service providers under this
RFP.
RFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth Page 4 of 7
III. Section 3 – Project Requirements
Overall Requirements
The proposed solution will meet the following requirements.
• Provide all pricing options with available contract terms (1yr, 3yr, 5yr).
• Provide applicable Service Level Agreements (SLA) for each service in the proposal.
• Provide a description of support and escalation paths for any service impacting issues
for each service proposed.
• As applicable, describe the proposed service’s ability to deliver services over dual-stack
connectivity, utilizing both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing.
• As applicable, describe each provider’s strategy for mitigation of DDoS (distributed
denial-of-service) and other related attacks that could impact the service(s) being
offered.
• As applicable, describe the firm’s capability of delivering proactive network monitoring
and response to cyber threats or any other outage situations.
• Provide estimated timelines for installation of each proposed service. The City would
expect services to be installed and available by May 15th, 2019.
Individual Service Requirements
Internet Bandwidth Services – The City requires a minimum of two internet bandwidth service
providers. The primary two providers must provide geographic, transport, network and company
diversity from each other in order to be fully considered. Such services must meet the following
requirements.
• The proposed two bandwidth services will be delivered (one at each) at the following
facilities to tie into Fort Collins Connexion’s network:
o 910 Telecom facility at 910 15th St, Denver CO
o Raging Wire CA1 DC facility at 1200 Striker Ave, Sacramento CA
• The proposed internet bandwidth services must have geographic, transport, network and
company diversity from each other to be fully considered.
• All bandwidth services quoted should be fully symmetrical, with equal upload and
download speeds delivered at full-duplex.
• Preference will be given to Tier 1 providers. However, Tier 2 providers may also be
considered as one of the connections will be considered secondary. Please state your
definitions of Tier 1, 2, etc. providers and detail where each of your solutions fall within.
• The internet bandwidth providers must be able to deliver low-latency and extremely
reliable connections to the Internet. Please include in your response descriptions of each
provider’s ability to deliver such a highly reliable and low-latency upstream connection
solution that will meet the demanding needs of a FTTP municipal broadband network for
both residential and business customers.
• Provide each proposed bandwidth solution’s stance on Net Neutrality and
describe any traffic shaping or policing mechanisms that may affect the
transport or bandwidth services quoted.
RFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth Page 5 of 7
• Provide any and all overage rates for burstable bandwidth above CIR
(committed information rate). Please include an example calculation to
demonstrate how a certain overage amount would be calculated to an
overage price.
• Please describe the peering requirements for your solution and best practice
approach to bandwidth or path control, such as used EBGP tuning attributes,
community strings or other network interfacing influencers
• Please describe any import and export policy requirements for BGP peering
and best practice of internet routing table size (i.e., full, partial, default)
• Please describe any IP data filter requirements for your solution; please
distinguish between upstream and downstream traffic filters
• Please describe the use of authentication and/or encryption of signaling and
data traffic in your solution for internet bandwidth
• If available, provide pricing for available public IPv4 Blocks (/24 - /19, etc).
• Provide overall network performance metrics including network latency. Also
provide the number of hops from the delivery location(s) to major peering
points with other providers.
• Please reference and fill out the attached Response Matrix for specific
service addresses and bandwidth requirements.
IV. Section 4 – Submittal Response Format
Response to this RFP need to contain answers to the following questions in this order and
format.
Response Requirements
1. Fill out the attached Response Matrix spreadsheet and include the file attached to
your response.
2. Address all requirement stated in Section III, Overall Requirements and Individual
Service Requirements.
3. Provide a detailed list of any features and technical specifications of any proposed
services.
4. Provide a detailed list of hardware requirements or recommendations for proposed
services (including optics, etc).
5. Provide a detailed list of any cancellation penalties or early termination fees for multi-
year contracts as applicable.
6. Include installation and turn-up timelines for each of the services proposed.
7. Provide a sample contract for services including Service Level Agreement(s).
8. The City reserves the right to purchase any, all, or none of the products and services
offered in responses.
The City of Fort Collins will not pay charges that are not specifically defined within the
Bidder’s response.
RFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth Page 6 of 7
V. Section 5 – Other Details
Anticipated Schedule
The following represents the City’s target schedule for the RFP. The City reserves the
right to amend the target schedule at any time.
• RFP issuance: March 20, 2019
• Question deadline: 5:00 PM MST on March 27, 2019
• Proposal due date: 3:00 MST (our clock) on April 4, 2019
• Interviews (Optional): Week of April 8, 2019
• Award of Contract (tentative): April 12, 2019
• Commencement of Services May 15, 2019
Interviews
In addition to submitting a written proposal, the top-rated firms may be interviewed by the
project team and/or asked to meet with the team to obtain clarification on the details of the
proposal and the conditions or covenants proposed.
Subcontractors
Firms will be responsible for identifying any subcontractors in their proposal. Please note
that the City will contract solely with the awarded firm; therefore subcontractors will be the
responsibility of the firm.
Laws and Regulations
The Firm agrees to comply fully with all applicable local, State of Colorado and Federal
laws and regulations and municipal ordinances.
VI. Section 6 – Review and Assessment Criteria
Proposal and Interview Criteria
Firms will be evaluated on the following criteria. These criteria will be the basis for review
and assessment of the written proposals and optional interview session. At the discretion
of the City, interviews of the top-rated firms may be conducted.
WEIGHTING
FACTOR
CRITERIA
25% Assessment of the proposed solution(s)
25% Time and resources required to implement
50%
Proposed value including non-recurring cost, recurring cost,
year-over-year cost escalators, hardware requirements, early
termination penalties, etc.
RFP 8891 Broadband Internet Bandwidth Page 7 of 7
Reference Evaluation Criteria
Prior to award, the City may check references and negative responses from references
may impact the award determination.