Telecommunications services

Tender description

The contracting authority on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the Secretary of State for the Department for International Development (DFID) and the British Council (BC) (collectively the ‘Partners’ or ‘Customers’) intends to award a framework agreement to a single supplier for the provision of Network Integration Services (the ‘Services’). The contracting authority intends to make the framework agreement available to other UK Central Government bodies. The services will connect ministerial headquarters and other head offices in the UK with their respective embassies, consulates and other office locations, totaling approximately 532 sites in 180 countries. There will be no contractual commitment to any part of the services under the framework agreement. However, significant elements are expected to be called off when the framework agreement is awarded (or very shortly thereafter). Please see the descriptive document for further detail. The contracting authority is seeking to select a single supplier who can make available the following services under the framework agreement as included below. 1) Implementation services — the requirements for the implementation of the supplier's solution. 2) Operational Services. (a) Elective services: the requirements that the supplier shall provide across the customer ICT environment(s) as part of its technical solution and which shall be available for consumption by the customer via optional call offs within the call-off contract. (i) Network platform — providing the customer with a resilient network traffic management capability using next generation networking technologies. (ii) Global connectivity services — multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) connectivity, providing the customer with the ability to route network traffic over MPLS links from overseas sites to the UK and between overseas sites with guaranteed capacity and performance levels. Very small aperture terminal for sites where the provision of other forms of connectivity are not available or a backup connection is required. (iii) Secure internet gateway — providing the customer with outbound access to enable end users to securely consume services hosted on the internet. (iv) Software defined perimeter — providing the customer with secure remote connectivity enabling access to its data and applications through a network security framework that dynamically creates one-to-one network connections between each user and the resources that they access. (v) Next generation firewall — providing the customer with next generation firewall technologies, enhancing and complementing the traditional stateful inspection firewall with other network device filtering functions, such as but not limited to, in-line deep packet inspection, intrusion prevention system and application awareness. (vi) Encryption devices — providing the customer with encryption services for Official tier data in transit. (b) Service management: the ongoing service management requirements to support the technical solution, which form part of the services that the supplier shall provide, including obligations in respect of the supplier’s service desk, incident resolution, change management, configuration management, release processes and reporting. 3) Optional services — services such as session border control service may be called off by a customer through a call-off contract. (a) Session border controllers — support public switched telephone network and cloud unified communications integration to the customer's voice over IP platforms, migrating from legacy in country PSTN solutions. (b) ITSM Toolset technical integration: technical integration of the Supplier's ITSM toolset with the ITSM toolsets of the customers' for selected support activities. The successful supplier will be required to complete transition and cutover to new arrangements prior to the expiry of the existing contract on 30 September 2023. II) Common services and collaborative call-off contracts The partners intend to work closely together in relation to the services provided under the call-off contracts. There are a number of requirements which the partners anticipates will need to be built in common across all call-off contracts. III) Subsequent stages It is anticipated that a maximum of four (4) potential suppliers will receive the ISIT following the selection questionnaire (‘SQ’) stage. Following the evaluation of the initial tenders, the contracting authority reserves the right to award the framework agreement on the basis of the initial tender submitted or invite a maximum of four (4) tenderers to participate in negotiation of the initial tenders. The contracting authority reserves the right to publish an Invitation to submit subsequent tender, negotiate the subsequent tenders, followed by the invitation to submit final tender submission.