Subject:
Title
Board Approval to Advertise and Request Proposals for County Telephone and Network Services
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Fiscal Impact:
Dependent upon proposals. Significant spending reductions are not expected, but value added is expected such as increased bandwidth and increased service reliability. Due to remote workers and the need for virtual meetings, many locations have required increased bandwidth in the past year.
Current annual expenditure is approximately $1.1 Million
Dept/Office:
Information Technology
Requested Action:
Recommendation
It is requested that the Board of County Commissioners:
1. Authorize the development and advertisement of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for County telephone and network services.
2. Approve a Selection and Negotiation committee comprised of:
- Director of Planning and Development
- Director of SCGTV
- Director of Utility Services
- Information Technology Senior Network Administrator, and
- Information Technology Telephone Services Administrator
3. Authorize the BoCC Chair to execute any resulting contract(s) and contract related documents upon review and approval by the County Attorney’s Office, Risk Management and Purchasing Services; and
4. Authorize the County Manager to approve any necessary Budget Change Requests, as well as approve negotiated any contract options.
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Summary Explanation and Background:
On May 17, 2016, the Board of County Commissioners granted permission to negotiate and award Request for Proposal P-4-16-04 for Voice Communications to Bright House Networks. Although Bright House/Spectrum is the primary telecommunications and network provider, there are several other vendors providing these services for redundancy and for connectivity in remote locations. Annual costs for these services fluctuate based upon bandwidth and additional service requests, but are currently approximately $1.1 million for the County. This RFP will request proposals for Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) telephone services, analog telephone services for alarm lines and emergency lines, Internet services, and Metro-ethernet for connecting County locations. Library Services will also have a separate award as their period of performance is from 1 July to 30 June for grant purposes and the current Bright House/Spectrum contract ends 30 September 2021. Upon approval, the RFP is expected to be advertised in February 2021 with a Library Services award to begin services July 1, 2021 and remaining County services to begin October 1, 2021.
Clerk to the Board Instructions:
None