NG40 vEPC Maintenance Support

Pursuant to FAR 6.302-1, the Department of Commerce, Office of the Secretary intends to issue a sole source contract to ng4T GmbH for maintenance support of a NG40 virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)/Institute for Telecommunications Sciences (ITS). ITS, in support of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Emergency Communications Division (ECD), operates a NG40 vEPC from ng4T GmbH. The vEPC is used as the network core for the LTE devices used in the course of testing Wireless Priority Services (WPS) for LTE systems. Testing WPS allows DHS to determine the performance capabilities during emergencies when cellular systems may become overloaded. This testing is critical to ensure that first responders and government officials have unhindered access to LTE networks to keep an open flow of information during these scenarios. Without this, emergency officials would not have the communications resources required to complete their mission. ng4T is the developer of the NG40 vEPC used by the WPS project and the only provider of maintenance support. To continue the work of NTIA's WPS project, NG40 vEPC is required. The intent of this notice is not to request competitive quotations and no solicitation is available or will be issued. Any information received from interested parties will only be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether a competitive procurement should be conducted. Interested parties may submit a description of their firms' capabilities for satisfying the requirement, which demonstrates they possess the ability to successfully perform this effort. All questions concerning this matter should be addressed directly to the Contracting Officer, LeeAnne Tran at [email protected].