Department of Commerce, Mountain Administrative Support Center, Procurement Division, MC3, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303-3328

A -- NATIONAL SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS VIA SATELLITE SOL NT910000500172DT DUE 090895 POC Doris Turner, 303-497-3872 The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has a requirement which will consist of five specific tasks to be performed between the time of contract award and March 31, 1996. The tasks to be accomplished are: 1) Assemble, test, install, and support three unique interfaces for the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) earth stations that implement frame relay communications protocols. 2) Provide modified TCP/IP software for use at the three ACTS sites. The modified software will allow changes to acknowledgement buffer sizes, various time-outs, and other parameters. 3) Conduct additional data, laboratory simulations or measurements of ATM communications over a satellite channel. 4) Identify national and international telecommunications standards, both existing and emerging, that may be affected by or benefit from the new knowledge of digital communications performance over a satellite channel that will be developed under this project. 5) Participate in collaboration activities, including preparation of an Experiment Plan, participation in project meetings, and interactions with NASA. The ACTS was launched by NASA for experimental and demonstration purposes. COMSAT Laboratories is the only known source for the services required. COMSAT Labs is currently a member of the ACTS collaboration research team that also includes: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and MITRE Corporation. COMSAT Labs is an approved ACTS experimenter and possesses an ACTS earth station. COMSAT Labs has a T1 communications link with NIST in Gaithersburg, and they have experience with the ACTS earth station, since they developed the communications interfaces for the ACTS earth stations for NASA. Since these earth stations are not commercial products, parts of both the interfaces and software are unique to the ACTS system. The new interfaces will support frame relay communications protocols; these can be constructed using ACTS interface boards. Participation in the activities of the collaboration require that the proposed contractor be a member of the collaboration, have full status as a NASA ACTS Experimenter, and have a T1 digital communications link with NIST in Gaithersburg. The proposed contract action is for services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only COMSAT Laboratories under authority of FAR 6.302. Interested sources proposing to supply an equivalent service must submit a written qualification statement clearly establishing capability to meet the above requirements within 30 days from the date of this synopsis. In the absence of other qualified sources, it is the intent of the Government to negotiate a sole source contract under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1) to COMSAT Laboratories, 22300 COMSAT Drive, Clarksburg, MD 20871 as this source is considered to be the only responsible source and no other type of service will satisfy agency requirements. (0221)

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