County of Butler, Pennsylvania Request for Proposals 700 MHz, Project 25 Public Safety Radio Network BUTLER COUNTY RADIO RFP RESPONSES TO VENDOR QUESTIONS Request for Proposal: Butler County 700 MHz, P25 Public Safety Radio Network Issued July 8, 2016 Date: 19 August 2016 Revision: 2 To All Potential Bidders: This document is issued to respond to questions on or before August 5, 2016, modify and/or provide information to clarify the previously issued RFP document on July 8, 2016. Please attach this document to the published RFP as it is hereby made a part of the RFP documents. Per the RFP, the proposer shall include such changes in the work and/or materials covered by the proposal and such document is a part of the specifications and contract. The responses included in this document supersede any conflicting information that may be included in the RFP. Questions and responses have been included in a table that begins on the following page.
P25 Radio Project General N/A Are any of the sites with access issues? Restricted work hours? Section 1.1 C Respondents may respond to any one, multiple or all Section 1.1 C indicates that for the Microwave only response components of this solicitation. It is understood that that they county will indicate sites to be included in the various subsystems that may be bid separately are response. Would be the candidate sites listed in appendix C dependent on designs that may be provided from other or a sub set of those? vendors. To ensure applicable comparisons between proposals, the County has provided a list of assumptions that should be made by the microwave and civil-work vendors for site quantities and selections. None with the exception that the work to be performed at each site is scheduled with a minimum of 3 days of advanced notice to the County. Appendix C lists the County's preferable sites to be used in the Microwave design. Additional sites that are added as part of the design shall be added at equivalent equipment and labor costs as other hops. Section 1.6.1 F Section 1.6.3.A Section 1.7 A Respondent shall be responsible for performing a structural analysis for each tower where loading will be modified, and for advising the County where remediation will be required and the cost options for proposed modifications. LMR Licenses: It is the County s desire to operate exclusively in the 700 MHz band and vacate the T-Band. The County shall be responsible for all license acquisitions to support the new system. The final delivery location shall be determined after contract award. The Contractor shall be responsible for coordinating with the County regarding the storage of equipment and material used before, during and after the project. The County shall not be liable for equipment or material stored onsite prior to installation We want to confirm that a Structural Analysis will be required for a Microwave only proposal? Also understanding that it is usually a combine effort between the P25 design and Microwave design? It is understood that the County will be responsible for all frequency coordination and license acquisition work for the 700MHz system. Please confirm. Will the county provide warehousing space? Vendors should be prepared to support their design with a sturtural analysis. If two proposals, one for Microwave and one for Radio include structural analysis are provided, the selected vendors will coordinate which vendor will perform the structural and the other vendor shall provide a credit for the cost of the structural. Confirmed. The County will be responsible for obtaining and coordinating the licenses for 700 MHz channels for the P25 radio system based on the amount of channels the vendor proposes. The vendor will be required to provide information that will aid in the licensing process. The County does not have warehouse space to provide for vendor supplied equipment. Section 3.1.A.1 Section 3.10. BACKUP CONSOLETTES OPTION A Section 3.3.3 B Section 3.5.4.H & Section 3.5.D.2 The digital trunked simulcast system must utilize the radio sites detailed in Appendix C and integrate them into a standalone system with a controller owned and operated by Butler County As an option, Respondents shall provide back-up consolettes for each console position. Respondents will provide details regarding the interface between the consolettes and the consoles. The design of the consolette system shall include all necessary cabling, surge protection and antennas. B. The proposed system shall meet a GoS of 1 percent, with 90 percent of units that are placed in queue receiving a channel grant within two seconds. Respondents shall use the following information in developing their designs: H. Required Service Area Reliability: 97 percent 2. The radio system shall provide portable radio coverage of 95 percent in street within the county boundary with 95 percent reliability. Focused in-building coverage is required in the population centers. Please clarify if the use of all existing RF sites is the intended requirement. Does the County require that these new consolettes be local to each individual dispatch position, or will they instead be located in the back room and adjacent to the console controller? Grade of Service: Several assumptions (Section 3.3.3 B) are stated for calculating GOS except for the number of talk groups to be used in the calculation. How many talk groups should be assumed? The specification calls for a service area reliability of 97%, however elsewhere requires a service area reliability of 95% for portables. Which is required? The intention is the reutilize all existing sites, however, if the design requires an additional site (s) or the use of another site that provides improved coverage at a lower cost to the County in the curent site's service area, the vendor shall propose this in their proposed solution. The County prefers new consolettes be located in the back equipment room and adjacent to the console controllers. Vendors shall make reasonable assumptions based on the information provided within the RFP. County has not determined number of talk groups needed at this time. Service area reliability of 95% Section 3.6.2.F Section 3.6.5 C F. OPTIONAL Respondents shall provide a P25 ISSI as an option for Butler County to connect to the Inter- County Regional Radio System (ICORRS). The number of connections supported by the ISSI interface shall be provided. The ISSI connections shall allow system-tosystem talkgroup roaming C. Prior to implementation, the selected Respondent shall perform the following studies at each site: The RFP calls for an optional ISSI interface (Section 3.6.2.F) for ICORRS. Should the quote only include the Butler County ISSI interface, or both sides? In the event that licenses are not posted for each tenant at each site (per FCC regulations), will the County provide a list of licensees? Section 3.7 Network Management System The specification for network management includes items such as smoke detectors, temperature alarms, etc. Please clarify who will be providing the various sensors and under which section of the RFP. Proposal shall include an optional ISSI interface only for Butler County. The County does not have copies of the licenses for other tenants at the sites. Sensors are provided as determined by the type of alarm required and the system the sensor is associated with. For example: sensors associated with the shelter will be provided by the civil contractor and sensors for alarms on the microwave system would be provided by the microwave vendor. Page 1 of 5
P25 Radio Project Section 3.7 C Section 4.2.1.A & 4.2.1.I Section 4.2.A.4 & 4.2.1.L Site Alarms: Any change in the state of site equipment shall induce an alarmed state. Equipment monitored shall include, but not be limited the following, at a minimum: The digital microwave backhaul network shall consist of monitored hot standby (MHSB) or ring-protected point-topoint licensed microwave hops. A. The digital microwave network shall consist of the following components: 4. Channel bank (multiplex) equipment 4.2.1.L: Requirements: Channel Bank 1. Respondents shall provide digital channel bank equipment. Channel bank equipment shall be capable of drop and insert of individual radio circuits (DS0s) in order to fully utilize DS1s across the entire network. Site Alarms appears to be part of the P25 proposal and not Alarms and monitoring associated with the microwave system shall be included in the required as part of the Microwave proposal? Is that where the microwave system proposal. Site Alarms should be priced into the project? Microwave specification includes a requirement for backup transmitter/receiver. This is the normal case for (Section 4.2.1.A & 4.2.1.I) MHSB. It is assumed this does not apply to hops within a ring. Please clarify, is this also required for each hop in a ring configuration? Microwave requirement includes channel banks (Sections 4.2.A.4 & 4.2.1.L) but does not specify capacity, location, or specific requirements for same. Please clarify this requirement. This would not be required for those hops within a ring; only for those hops that are not a part of a ring design, such as a spur, would require a MHSB. Each hop would contain either one or the other, but not both based on the microwave system design. We are removing the requirement of providing channel banks, our intension was to retire the leased DS1 services supporting the current radio system earlier in the deployment of the new wireless networking solution. However the microwave network system shall provide all of the interfaces identified in the specifications such as DS0 and DS1 to support paging and future applications. While it is still desirable to eliminate the leased DS1 service as early as possible, proposals are requested to include separate costs and solutions for providing the advanced DS1 retirement option. Section 4.2.1.D Section 4.2.1.L Section 4.2.1 E 1 Section 4.2.1 F 1 & 2 The network shall support MPLS routing to support seamless integration and ad hoc routing with landlinebased Ethernet connections. Digital Microwave Network - 4.2.1.L - 1. Respondents shall provide digital channel bank equipment. Channel bank equipment shall be capable of drop and insert of individual radio circuits (DS0s) in order to fully utilize DS1s across the entire network. Each hop shall be equipped for the proposed IP radio network requirements and existing legacy T1 radio system channels to support existing legacy radio channels, including leased T1 line connectivity in use today. 1. Each microwave hop shall be designed to meet or exceed a one-way, end-to-end annual reliability performance (BER = 10-3) of 99.995 percent at the required capacity. 2. Each microwave hop shall be designed to meet or exceed a one-way, end-to-end annual quality performance (BER = 10-6) of 99.999 percent at the required capacity. Microwave requirement is for compatibility with MPLS (Section 4.2.1.D) however no MPLS requirement is stated. Are MPLS routers currently existing or to be supplied by the county? If included in this proposal, what are the specific requirements? Channel Banks How many, and what traffic are you running? Should we assume we only need 1 T1 per location, and 8 T1s at the main site, as stated during the walkthroughs? How many DS0s and do you have a channel plan that shows this detail? Would you want to consider reusing your existing channel banks? Section 4.2.1 E 1 Are the T1 s requested to be native T1's and not T1 s emulated over Ethernet? Section 4.2.1 F 1 & 2 does end to end refer to just the individual hop or the system? These costs will be evaluated against existing DS1 costs during the evaluation process. The DS1 network supports one channel bank ( aka one DS1) at each of the 9 remote locations networked to the existing Sunnyview tower. The radio and microwave connectivity should be designed to be independent of other Butler County resources, however Butler County offers to provide interfaces to the Region 13 Nokia SAR 8 (software release 6.0) ESInet at Freeport, Moraine Tower site, and the new PSAP tower site. The intention of offering these interface points is to increase the robustness of the wireless network when a full ring design is not feasible or when multiple routes increase resiliency. The SAR 8 Ethernet points of interface can utilize MPLS with OSPF as a routing protocol as well as other services can be offered such as Layer 2 Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). If other protocols or services may better support your proposal, please include in your response. There is 1 channel bank at each of the remote sites and 3 channel banks at the prime site (a total of 12). There are 9 T1 s, one from each remote site to the prime site. Each of the T1 s to the remote sites currently uses a minimum of 11 DS0 s. Vendors are required to reuse the TeNSr channel banks only if proposing to support the existing UHF system to eliminate the DS1 service early in the deployment as described above. The channel banks provide the timing for the current simulcast system. The current T1 s are native, but could be migrated to be emulated over Ethernet. "End to End" refers to the individual hops within the microwave backhaul system. This term is often used synonymously with "link" and "path". Page 2 of 5
P25 Radio Project Section 4.2.1 K 4&5 4. An automatic dehydrator/pressurization system shall be provided to maintain at least 5 psig positive pressure of conditioned air in the elliptical waveguide and antenna feed unit. Individual pressure gauges on a distribution manifold shall be provided for each line. Section 4.2.1 K 4&5 seem to suggest the requirement of an all indoor Microwave configuration where only passive devices are up on the tower. Are all indoor Microwave radios required? Yes. Indoor microwave radio's are required and shall be rack mounted in equipment shelters. 5. All installed antenna/transmission lines shall be purged, pressure tested, and tested for low VSWR using return loss measurements. The minimum acceptable return loss shall be a VSWR of 1.5:1 and return loss of 14 db. Section 4.2.1.E.1 Backhaul Network - 4.2.1. Requirements - 1. Each hop shall be equipped for the proposed IP radio network requirements and existing legacy T1 radio system channels to support existing legacy radio channels, including leased T1 line connectivity in use today. Are the Microwave only respondents responsible to cut over the existing Channel banks from Telco T1 to the Microwave. Would this activity need to be done in a maintenance window? If so, please describe the maintenance window. Microwave respondents would provide technical support to the County's current radio vendor for cutover to the microwave network. This shall be done in a maintenance window between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. as determined by the County. This activity would need prior coordination with the County at least two weeks prior to cutover to allow the County ample time to create the maintenance period. Section 4.2.1-N & Section 5.5-A Section 5.4.C.1.e & 5.4.1.A Section 5.5 A DC power subsystem shall be provided for each microwave terminal e. Propane fuel The prime mover shall be a liquid-cooled, diesel engine. DC Power - A. Respondents shall provide a -48 VDC power system to support P25 equipment, microwave equipment, and ancillary site equipment at existing and proposed sites used in the proposed system design. Microwave specifications include DC power (Section 4.2.1-N) and so do site development specifications (Section 5.5-A). Are two DC power systems required at each microwave equipped site, or is only one required? Please clarify if generator should be propane or diesel powered. Section 5.5, seems it indicated that a single DC system is required and would be as part of the proposal from the site construction respondents. Is that where the DC System should be priced into the project? One DC power system to support equipment at the radio site to include the radio and microwave backhaul system. Generator shall be diesel powered. The DC power system can be priced with the Microwave. Section 6.2. TRUNKED REQUIREMENTS (1.) An operator shall be capable of setting up (and subsequently knocking down) an emergency call from the dispatch console position. Please define knocking down an emergency call. Does this mean dispatch console s ability to silence the emergency alert tone at the console, or does it mean the ability to clear the emergency call initiated by a field radio or a console? Knocking down is defined as the ability to clear the emergency call initiated by a field radio or console. Section 6.4. PAGING REQUIREMENTS (A.) Consoles shall support current signaling methods as well Please confirm the requirement is that a dispatch console The County does not currently use alphanumeric paging but would like this as part of the proposed alphanumeric paging format. Additional features shall be described. 6. Post Office Code Standardization Advisory Group (POCSAG) 512/1200/2400 bits. must have the capability to initiate an alphanumeric page in the POCSAG format. Section 3.2.3 states that a UHF Toneand-Voice Simulcast Paging System should be included, and this seems to contradict the requirement for alphanumeric paging. If POCSAG paging is in fact required, then please provide information on any existing paging applications terminal and/or paging transmitters. If there are currently no paging application, terminal or transmitter(s) for POCSAG paging, then please explain if a POCSAG application, terminal and/or transmitter(s), with specifications, should be included in our proposal. the new paging solution. The County would like POCSAG paging terminal included as in option in the proposal. Section 6.5. SYSTEMS INTEGRATION (B.) Section 6.5. SYSTEMS INTEGRATION (C.) The dispatch console system shall support interfaces with the various computer aided dispatch (CAD) systems in use by Butler County to provide the ability for the CAD systems to automatically select recommended stations for dispatch. The dispatch console system shall support connections to both existing resources and conventional resources as determined by the County. Please provide information on existing CAD Systems and points of contact for the CAD Systems Vendors. In order to prepare an accurate response we shall require additional information including quantity and type of all dispatch console resources so that the console system will be provisioned to accommodate connection to these resources. Please provide a complete listing of all conventional resources to be interfaced to the dispatch console. The current CAD system is CALIBER (Formerly InterACT) The County currently is reviewing RFP responses for a new Regional CAD system. The CAD vendor and point of contact is subject to change. The console system shall integrate with the following systems utilized by the County: 1. 800 MHz Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network (PA-STARNet) control station interfaced via Tone Remote Control Module (TRCM) in the control station. 2. UHF conventional P25 and analog (dual mode) Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Radio System (PEMARS) station located at the Sunnyview tower site interfaced via a 4-wire connection. Page 3 of 5
P25 Radio Project Section 6.5.A.3, 4, 5 A. The console system shall integrate with the following systems utilized by the County: 3. Other existing resources in place as determined by the County 4. Conventional resources as determined by the County 5. Other systems as the County identifies RFP states integration is required into (other) systems to be determined by the County (Section 6.5.A.3, 4, 5). If these are to be included in the proposal, please define or list. Currently there are no other systems and/or resources. Section 7.3.1. C. 2. e. Full-time onsite technician Do you want a full-time on site technician for microwave only bid? Please provide: Number of technical staff needing training as described in item C. Number of individuals needing system management and maintenance training as describer in item D. Individual dispatch operators needing training as described in Item E Individual dispatch supervisors needing training as described in Item E Individual portable radio users needing training as described in Item F Individual mobile radio users needing training as described in Item F Number of individuals needing train the trainer training as described in Item J. Please also describe which type of training is required (User, Dispatch, System, etc). Section 10.2 Subscriber Equipment The RFP requires optional GPS for subscribers and associated equipment (assumes fixed network equipment). What applications will be required and who will provide these? The County does not require an on-site technician for the microwave only bid. The respondent would be required to provide technician level training to a local vendor as determined by the County. An anticipated number of ten (10) students The County is interested in location tracking of first responders, either by solutions offered directly by the respondent or by interfacing to third-party applications such as CAD utilizing an industry standard interface. Section 10.2.2 There are approximately 389 mobile and control station Please clarify how many of each, mobiles and control stations, Proposals should base their estimates using approximately 329 mobile radios and 60 radios on the system that are not 700 MHz P25 Phase II are required. compliant and will need to be replaced. control stations. The selected vendor(s) shall obtain and verify the latest subscriber quantities from the County. Page 4 of 5
P25 Radio Project Section 10.2.3.B B. Respondent also shall develop subscriber unit How many subscriber templates will be required (Section programming templates. These templates shall have the 10.2.3.B) basic features and functions defined for a particular subscriber unit and user type. Templates shall be developed on a per-agency basis. County will require between 8 to 10 subscriber templates. Terms and Conditions COUNTY TERMS AND CONDITIONS Is Union labor required at any site (s)? Union labor is not required. However Construction projects (construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration and or repair work other than maintenance Terms and Conditions Section 1: Cover letter and non-collusion affidavit The RFP states that a Non-Collusion Affidavit will need to be provided as part of Section 1 of the proposal package; however, we do not see one included in the RFP. Please reference the document titled "Noncollusion Affidavit" posted on the Butler County, PA website. Official Proposal Form Tone and voice pagers Please clarify how many tone and voice pagers are anticipated. The County anticipates agencies will reutilize their existing pagers. Vendor shall provide pricing for agencies that would like to purchase additional pagers. Addendum 1 2.8 BONDS REQUIRED: Regarding the bond requirements in Addendum 1, what Contract do the Bonds need to comply with? Do you have a copy of the contract you can supply us now? Please reference Addendum #1, Addendum #3 and Addendum #4 for further details on bond compliance. A copy of the contract will be supplied after the notification of intent to award. Page 5 of 5