SOLICITATION FOR THE PROCUREMENT OF INTERNET SERVICE

PROVIDER (ISP) AT USAID/DRC

A. Solicitation # and Issuance date: 72066024R00008 – July 8, 2024

B. Subject: Procurement of Internet Service Provider (ISP) at
USAID/DRC
C. Issuing Office/Section: USAID/DRC/EXO
198, Isiro Avenue (Gare Centrale)
Gombe/Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of Congo
D. Site Walkthrough: July 16, 2024, at 11:00 AM
All participants are required to RSVP
at: [email protected]
E. Questions Due date: July 16, 2024
F. Proposal Submission Deadline: July 22, 2024 – (17:00, Kinshasa Time)
G. Person of contact: Fanny Mpongo,
[email protected]
H. Type of award: Fixed-price Purchase Order
I. Basis for award: Best Value

I. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

The United States government, represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), seeks the services of a qualified Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide a robust
and reliable Internet services that will adequately provide Internet connectivity to one of its
USAID DRC office. The ISP must be able to provide uninterruptible Internet services and
smooth operations.

Proposal submission and questions regarding this solicitation must ONLY be submitted via email
to [email protected] before the deadline July 22, 2024 .

Offeror submissions must clearly reference the Solicitation number on all offer documents in a
PDF format.

Issuance of this solicitation does not constitute an award or commitment on the part of the U.S.
Government, nor does it commit the U.S. Government to pay for costs incurred in the
preparation and submission of a proposal.

All interested parties are required to be registered with the Unique Entity ID (UEI) database and
are subject to SAM registration before the issuance of a contract/Purchase Order. Information on
obtaining the UEI and SAM registration can be found at this website: http://www.sam.gov.

● Quick reference guides for non-U.S.-based organizations (French version); and

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 ● A key information log that outlines all of the information organizations need to collect
for registration.
● Get a UEI in SAM.gov

II. SCOPE OF WORK

1. OVERVIEW

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) office in Kinshasa,
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a U.S. Government Agency that provides assistance in
Health, Democracy and Governance, Education, Food for Peace, environmental and
humanitarian activities in the DRC.

2. PURPOSE

USAID/DRC requires the services of a qualified Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide
robust Internet services that will adequately provide Internet connectivity to its 250-node
network. The requested service must have adequate redundancy at critical network points and at
all other necessary levels to ensure un-interruptible Internet service and smooth operations at all
times.

3. STATEMENT OF WORK

Under the direction of the Systems Manager who is the designated activity manager, the Offeror
shall undertake all tasks described in this statement of work.

The Offeror shall seek to understand the current infrastructure installed at USAID/DRC by
carrying out a site survey. The USAID/DRC Mission’s offices are located on 198 Avenue Isiro,
Mobil building, Kinshasa/Gombe. Currently, the Mission does not have any remote site and all
services will be provided at this location. USAID will conduct a site visit with short-listed ISP
who have qualified with their submitted bid in response to this solicitation.

Due to the critical nature of this service requirement, the Offeror shall be required to ensure
availability of the Internet service at all times. Any interruptions or service degradation below
USAID’s expectations will result in the loss of the subscription fees commensurate for the
duration that the service was unavailable or when the service quality was unacceptable to
USAID.

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

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After the service has been commissioned the Offeror shall bear any and all installation costs that
may be required to keep the quality of the service acceptable to USAID. Further, the Offeror will
be responsible for additional costs incurred from technical modifications, changes in Internet
provisioning technologies or changes in agreements between the Offeror and partners.

Required Bandwidth, VSAT and Fiber Connection.

⮚ Minimum Downlink speed from North American Internet sites 20Mbps (Committed)
⮚ Minimum Uplink Speed to North American sites 8Mbps (Committed) and
⮚ Burstable upwards by a minimum of 512 kbps or more.

VSAT requirements:
● 4.5 Meter Dish with a powerful modem and
● 8 ports switch or more to accommodate each public IP address.
Note that the bandwidth shall be dedicated.

In addition to the services outlined above,

Provide 100 Mbps fiber optic Internet service with symmetrical (100 Mbps upload & 100 Mbps
download) dedicated bandwidth.

Service will include:

● SLA at 99.8%.
● Fiber Optic connected to 3 different international outputs.
● No charge to the Mission for bringing the fiber optic cable to the office (no charge for
fiber pulling and commissioning).
● A Point-To-Point wireless link shall be used as backup in the event of an outage of the
physical fiber optic coming to our office.
● Two blocks of /29 public IP address, with each block of /29 addresses with a separate
interface on the router.

Please note: The Fiber connection shall be considered as our primary connection to the building
and all Products or services from Huawei Technologies Company; ZTE Corporation Hytera
Communications Corporation; Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company; Dahua
Technology Company or any subsidiaries or affiliates are prohibited in USAID Kinshasa
infrastructure.

II.4. DELIVERABLES

a. The Offeror shall provide the required bulk Internet Service through industry standard
telecommunications channel equipment where operations meet approved local
telecommunication regulator requirements.

b. The Offeror shall provide two blocks of IP addresses on two different subnets:
1) First block, a minimum of 16 (sixteen) contiguous IP addresses block, will be used
for internal device addressing by USAID and

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 2) Second block, a minimum of 4 (four) contiguous IP addresses of public class, will be
used for external equipment addressing between USAID and the ISP.
c. The Offeror shall provide all documentation for the installed infrastructure including but
not limited to network numbers, passwords, and configurations.
d. The Offeror shall provide any test tools that may include hardware or software
components. Logon account details for monitoring of critical devices or monitoring of
connection speeds.

e. The Offeror shall be registered and approved as an Internet Service Provider by the local
Telecommunication Regulatory Authority.

f. The Offeror shall provide contact details and qualifications of all personnel who will
carry out the installation as well as the shift engineers who operate their 24/7 network
operations center.
g. The Offeror 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 and shall provide service level agreement (SLA) if available.

For Internet Services the Internet Service Provider (ISP) must guarantee full contracted
bandwidth availability 24/7/365 days from the originator side to the ISP’s internet gateway.
Bandwidth sharing between other non-Embassy customers is not allowed. Connection Ratio
must be 1/1.

a. The Offeror shall provide excellent Quality of Service (QOS) for the connection, that
represents the level of consistent download capacity provided, must be the higher QOS
percentage possible but, at minimum, greater than 99.97% or the highest possible quality
of service connection reaching 100%.

b. The Offeror Round Trip Time (RTT) reports the total time in milliseconds (ms) time to
send a small data packet and obtain a reply back; must be the faster than 600ms for the
Round-Trip Time (RTT) for internet service and for the fiber connection the (RTT) must
be faster than 200ms.

c. The Offeror shall provide a detailed network topology map that shows all possible paths
ISP use for the internet traffic between the ISP hub in Kinshasa and the ISP hub in United
States of America (USA).

d. The Offeror shall have redundancy in the Internet backbone between the Democratic
Republic of Congo and USA. For example, if NAP of the host country’s backbone fails,
NAP Americas, NAP Sprint, or any other alternate backbone paths shall be available.

5. WARRANTY

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

6. DEPLOYMENT / INSTALLATION

The Offeror shall install the Internet infrastructure necessary to operate this service and hand
over all the necessary information to the USAID / DRC’s manager. The Offeror shall install and
commission any other equipment and other accessories including, but not limited to, items such
as UPS, power supplies/voltage regulator (redundancy), surge protectors, network information
such as IP addresses /Subnet and Gateway, telecommunications applications, patch cables,
electrical wiring and minimal cabling including all necessary accessories to make the required
Internet service fully operational.

The Offeror shall make sure that the VSAT, Fiber connection and the fiber connection backup
Point to Point wireless link are fully grounded by installing a proper electrical grounding to
protect all equipment such as Modem, Switch, and others.

7. Training

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

III. INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE

CLAUSES INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

52.246-4 Inspection of Services -- AUG 1996

Fixed-Price
52.246-5 Inspection of Services -- APR 1984
Cost-Reimbursement

The United States Government, represented by USAID Mission in DRC will receive, inspect,
and certify any equipment including documentation, configurations, and copies of all software at
the abovementioned location.

IV. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

The contract will have an initial period of performance of one (1) year. Following this, the
contract will have options for one (1) year each, up to a total period of performance of five (5)
years.

V. DELIVERIES AND PERFORMANCE

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 52.242-15 Stop-Work Order AUG 1989
52.242-15 Alt I Stop-Work Order (Aug APR 1984
1989) - Alternate I
52.242-17 Government Delay of APR 1984
Work

DELIVERY INFORMATION

ITEMS DELIVERY DATE QUANTITY DELIVERY ADDRESS

USAID/DROC
198, Isiro Avenue
Kinshasa/Gombe
Kits VSAT 4.5M
October 1, 2024 1 Democratic Republic of
DISH
the Congo
FOB: Destination
Attn: USAID/EXO
(SAME AS PREVIOUS
Every six months from
Bi-Annual 1 LOCATION)
the contract start date
Maintenance FOB: Destination

VI. EVALUATION CRITERIA

The Government will award a firm fixed price Purchase Order contract resulting from this
solicitation to the responsible Offeror whose proposal conforming to the specifications as set out
must be most advantageous to the Government, price and non-price factors considered. Best
value will be the basis of award, should the USG decide to award a contract as a result of this
solicitation.

Non-Price Factors:

The Offeror shall include a narrative to demonstrate capability in the following four areas:

(1) Technical Capability – Offerors 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 and US government Agency is required.
Proven ability to provide 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. (20 points)

(2) Past Performance – The Offerors shall be required to submit information on similar tasks
carried out in the past three years. USAID will assess past performance based on background
checks where such Internet service has been provisioned. Scopes of work for such tasks must be

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provided. All necessary terms of reference and contact information of the organization where the
services were provided must be submitted. This information may be presented in short paragraph
form. (30 points)

(3) Budget - This review will be based on the fairness and reasonableness of all the proposed
tasks taking in to account the quality of the personnel involved in provisioning of the service,
materials to be used, conformance to industry standards and acceptance by USAID/ DROC as
the client. (30 points)

(4) Project Management - The Offeror shall demonstrate knowledge of sound management,
operations management, project planning, ability to handle logistical issues and the ability to
transact with bank credits. (20 points)

Price Factors:

The Offeror’s cost estimate must include a detailed pricing sheet, and pricing for non-routine
work during the full potential life of the contract. All charges/pricing will be guided by the
following template:

Materials Quantity Estimated Cost ($) Total Est. Cost ($)

Kits VSAT 4.5M DISH 1 $ X $ X
Fibre bandwidth 104 $ X $ X
Buc 1 $ X $ X
Wifi Station (Microwave) 1 $ X $ X
Modem 1 $ X $ X
Other 1 $ X $ X
Bandwidth VSAT 28 $ X $ X
Bi-Annual Maintenance $ X
Project Management $ X
TOTAL COST $ X

--- END OF SOLICITATION ---

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