Rob Vietzke Connecticut Education Network University of Connecticut NEREN Quilt RON Meeting RFP Examples June 22, 2004

3 Dark Fiber RFP’s in 3 years State of Connecticut Dark Fiber RFP Metro Fiber Now 600+ Route miles and 170+ sites Build to all 170 sites and 450+ miles new fiber Certain Political / Financial / Operational Needs Revisit of Dark Fiber RFP to make it ERate Eligible Also included Managed Services for comparison North East Research & Education Network RFP Regional Long Haul Fiber Pre-existing POPs for NEREN members Different Certain Political / Financial / Operational Needs

First Dark Fiber RFP State Data Center move (3 miles) Options for other capacities solicited Results in State Master Agreement Negotiated heavily after selection Separation of Contract and “products”

CEN/Metro Fiber RFP Structure Simplicity important New to us, new to admin team Higher overall price, extreme expectations  Fixed Cost per route mile, regardless of construction parameters  Street Atlas & Purchase Order  Make customer happy

CEN In-State Core Observations For State Government Purposes: Contract needs to hide the complexity of a massive construction project Willing to pay a higher per-mile rate for  Fixed costs (one size fits all, rural, urban, good market, bad market)  Simplicity (procurement, billing, explanation) New to CEN, New to State Government Politics of Incumbency Broad Net, Wide range of acceptable answers

E-Rate Fiber Bid Roll traditional IRU and 5 Year maintenance into 60 even payments Add GBIC’s & Equip Maint to make it a lit service Include options for additional maintenance beyond first 5 years Also asked for a matching managed service Only used for pure K12 and library links 54% Reasons to do this, every year

NEREN RFI & RFP Process RFI solicits initial pricing, draws out viable competitors Define organizations intent, stir market interest to a slow froth Give Governance discussions something real to react to RFP follows RFI format, includes explicit: Request specific costs for construction, cross, O&M, power, racks, mid-span meets, etc at each site, specific to room Define the business case for the vendors’ upper management Define your cohesiveness, intent to work together Dangle Remote Hands, CISP, Lit Services

NEREN RFI & RFP Act Regionally & Collectively, Regardless of Governance, Funding, etc. Best purchasing power at front-end View future activities as “future phases” and “options” on base plans Include those places that probably aren’t viable anyway

Only Dark Fiber? NEREN’s primary intention in issuing this RFP is to secure a long-term dark fiber network upon which NEREN can develop research and education services for the region. NEREN will not accept a lit services solution in place of this primary objective. Only after the fiber is secured and NEREN’s ability to provision it’s own services on that fiber are in place will NEREN consider additional lit services. Already the marketplace has responded with dark-fiber offerings from at least 3 vendors,

Partnerships & Swaps NEREN strongly encourages vendors to contemplate fiber swaps, partnerships, or other means by which an aggregate solution for the entire region could be proposed to NEREN under a single contractual arrangement.

RFP Observations State RFP’s were not as sophisticated as NEREN RFP Hasn’t mattered (so far.) Don’t be afraid to allow proposals for things you don’t want Great data for later political issues  “They didn’t even try to meet spec, 3 others did”  “They were not even close to low bid” Evaluation Criteria based on your specifications

Retrospective RFP’s and RFI’s can define the market for you These documents can push and spin as well as receive information Vendor’s want your business; don’t be afraid to define unique, but reasonable terms. Forget what you know about demarcation policies Dark fiber is a competitive environment in Connecticut now. Folks soliciting RFP’s are now getting multiple responses. Standard Examples & Forms for data collection very useful Checklist for vendors very useful

Things we missed (but …) Metro: Explicit Damage language for customer sites Metro: Minimum Installation Standards