This is a sources sought notice only; it is not a request for quotations or offers. The VISN 9 Network Contracting Office is conducting market research for the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System (TVHS), Nashville Campus, to identify potential sources for a contract to provide annual pager service for TVHS. This request for information (RFI) is for planning purposes only and shall not be considered as an invitation for bid, request for quotation, request for proposal, or as an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services. Your response to this RFI will be treated as information only. No entitlement to payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by the Government will arise as a result of contractor submission of responses to this announcement or the Government use of such information. This request does not constitute a solicitation for proposals or the authority to enter into negotiations to award a contract. No funds have been authorized, appropriated, or received for this effort. The contractor shall provide all labor, materials, equipment, travel, tools, documentation and parts required for the support and repair of the equipment, software, and accessories necessary to provide this service. Contractor shall provide pagers for local coverage (Nashville/Murfreesboro and surrounding metro areas), as well as alphanumeric pagers that can be reached throughout the TVHS catchment area. This will include but is not limited to the Nashville, Clarksville and Chattanooga, Tennessee areas. Additionally, TVHS requires virtual pagers to allow for paging to be dynamically addressed to one or more devices. Contractor shall ensure that all areas within TVHS facilities have pager coverage and if need be, to install any new equipment, (for example, repeaters), at contractor's expense to ensure said coverage. Contractor shall provide local paging services to the following mutually exclusive facilities: a) Nashville VAMC and Murfreesboro VAMC (including 50-mile radius of each facility); b) VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic (Chattanooga) including 25-mile radius); and, c) VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic (Clarksville) including 25-mile radius). The contractor shall provide as part of the paging service: a) devices which support statewide paging to include the state of Tennessee; b) Web-based access to send an alphanumeric page; c) Secure means to add, change and delete pager groups; d) Forwarding capability that allows forwarding of pages to any 10-digit number; e) support for secure administrator access to change user-set forwarding rules on a pager; f) secure means to add and/or change pagers to a single virtual pager; g) replacements for broken or nonfunctional pagers provided at no cost to the government; and, h) contractor shall provide no less than 5% maintenance spares (pagers with no numbers assigned) to ensure government POC can immediately replace nonfunctional equipment. The information provided may be used by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Network Contracting Office 9 as a requirement for annual pager service for the VA TVHS in developing its acquisition strategy and statement of work/statement of objectives and performance specifications. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. A solicitation is not currently available. If a solicitation is issued, it will be announced and posted on this website at a later date, and interested parties must respond to the solicitation to be considered for award. Interested parties should respond to the Contract Specialist, Carlos Suggs by e-mail at
[email protected], or via the portal. Phone responses will not be accepted. Responses should be received no later than 30 May 2012 at 4:30 P.M. Central Standard Time.