Telecommunications equipment and supplies

Tender description

Devon County Council (DCC) is looking to establish a structure for Network, Telephony and Associated Services, using the below number of Lots for Devon. Lot 1 — Wide Area Network (WAN), Lot 2 — Fixed Line Voice and Data Services, Lot 3 — Mobile Voice and Data Services, Lot 4 — Data Cabling and Hardware, Lot 5 — LAN Equipment Supply and Maintenance. Lot 1 and 4 of this contract will also be available to the Devon and Cornwall Procurement Partnership including Schools in the County of Devon who may wish to use these services and no business can be guaranteed. DCC is looking to contract with a partner to deliver a fully managed Wide Area Network service for Devon County Council & their partners, who may use services at their discretion. DCC requires a fully managed enterprise, Layer 3, WAN to transport voice and data services from remote sites back to County Hall, Exeter where the main Data Centre is located. All sites must meet performance & ‘Quality of Service’ parameters & be actively monitored by the supplier. The new service must be capable of supporting IP version 6, offer PSN (Public Services Network) and resilient Internet connectivity. DCC is looking to contract with a partner to deliver cost effective voice services and call rates. DCC operates an internal voice/telephone network linked by proprietary SIP trunking across a managed MPLS network (See Lot 1). The network currently hosts about 7 000 extensions, spread across approximately 40 sites. Some smaller sites, not directly connected to the internal telephone network range from a single business exchange line to sites with a number of lines and a small PABX. DCC also operates a 60 seat call centre, based in Tiverton which deals with the majority of incoming calls from the public for Council services via 0345, 0845 and 0800 service numbers. DCC is moving to a more flexible method of working by replacing traditional extensions with Microsoft Skype for Business. The Authority currently has an estate of c. 3,300 mobile devices. DCC is seeking a partner who can assist in promptly delivering tangible business outcomes both in terms of reduced costs and increased flexibility and functionality, whilst keeping a weather eye on emerging technologies that could be used to further improve efficiency and reduce costs. There is a growing need for users to have access to connectivity ‘anywhere and anytime’ and, as mobile usage increases, during 2017 data usage is expected to exceed 1TB per month. At present a range of devices and platforms are supported, but the direction of travel is to streamline provision. The mobile device provision in this contract needs to integrate with the small range of supported laptop/tablet devices to ensure that users can connect their laptops to the DCC network wherever they might be, for example by reliable and easy to use device tethering. DCC is seeking proposals for the work associated with the provision of both minor and major additional telephone and data cabling from suitably qualified contractors. Contractors will need to demonstrate they have the financial, managerial and technical qualities to provide a first class service to DCC. The contract covers all DCC sites throughout the whole county and also for schools where SCOMIS are commissioned to undertake work. For data cabling, DCC still use the Cat5e standard and the standard telephone cabling is CW1308. There is also a small requirement for internal fibre provision, in both single and multicore variants. Devon County Council (DCC) require a supplier to take on the support and maintenance of the core DCC LAN switches, to include firmware upgrades as necessary. DCC require access to firmware and software for the Avaya switches. Our Core consists of 2 Avaya VSP9000 chassis which currently connect to each other creating the Inter Switch Trunk (IST). The Core connects to the Managed WAN service, via OSPF and routes data and voice traffic to DCC's remote offices. DCC also require a route to market for the purchasing of Avaya networking hardware.