The Army Program Director-Base Emergency Communications Systems (PD-BECS) Army Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Modernization

Introduction The Army Program Director-Base Emergency Communications Systems (PD-BECS) is seeking companies that can engineer, furnish, and install Computer?Aided Dispatch (CAD), Next Generation 9-1-1 Call Handling Systems (NG-911 CH), and NG-911 Location Information Services (LIS) in support of the PD-BECS Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Modernization efforts. Installations, Garrisons, and other Army operational sites use different names for communications centers including Dispatch Centers, Integrated Incident Management Centers, Emergency Communications Centers (ECCs), Incident Operations Centers, Fire Alarm Control Centers, etc. The term PSAP is used generically to represent those centers. PSAP Modernization will bring base emergency response systems into compliance with the current version of the Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG-911) i3 Standard (STA-010) published by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), the Department of Defense Public Safety Communications Directives and Instructions and Army Cyber Security policies. The Army operates PSAPs at thirty-eight (38) CONUS installations supporting organic law enforcement, fire protection, and emergency medical services to a combined population of approximately 400,000 active?duty military, civilians, and dependents. Scope The US Army seeks a balance between mature and state-of-the-art technology that enables the employment of solutions that will prolong the life of the new system. The US Army envisions that its modern CAD and NG-911 CH solutions will be based on proven technology derived from current industry standards. The NG-911 CH solution shall be a complete, on-premises system with fully redundant host controllers/servers, call taker/operator consoles, voice recording, and integrated automatic location information (ALI) database. The system shall support inbound calls from Army-owned and operated voice wireline legacy Time?Division Multiplexing (TDM) and/or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks, commercial wireline (housing, on-base contractors, vendors, etc.), and commercial wireless (mobile phone) sources. The NG-911 CH solution shall include an integrated automatic location information (ALI) database to provide location information for calls originating from legacy phones. The NG-911 and CAD systems shall be integrated in compliance with the current version of the NENA Emergency Incident Data Object (EIDO) standards (STA-021 and STA-024). The NG-911 CH solution shall be tested and approved by the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) and on the JITC Approved Product List (APL). System redundancy, as shown in the JITC System Under Test diagrams, shall have no single point of failure and shall provide automatic failover in the event of a server or network failure with no loss of active calls. The Army anticipates initially fielding on premise NG-911 CHSs until the technology matures and DoD-approved cloud-hosted solutions become available from industry. The NG-911 CH solution shall support calls routed from commercial (non-government) sources via legacy 9-1-1 selective routers, based on the associated existing Emergency Service Number (ESN), or geospatially routed Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based calls via an Internet Protocol (IP) based Emergency Services IP Network (ESInet) to automatically deliver 9-1-1 calls to the designated Army PSAP. The NG-911 CH solution shall be capable of interoperating with other DoD, Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial E9-1-1 or NG-911 PSAPs to support call transfers and conferencing, with location data, between PSAPs. The CAD solution is to be deployed as a cloud or other commercial data center-hosted solution that is centrally managed and fully redundant with no single points of failure. The contractor shall provide dedicated, redundant commercial IP circuits, with backup connections leveraging the National First Responder Broadband Long?Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network First Responder Broadband Network (FRBN) commonly known as First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet). The CAD system shall support legacy interfaces to ancillary sub-systems local to individual installations. These sub-systems include fire station alerting systems, fire and intrusion alarm central monitoring systems, headset arbitration between NG-911 and radio consoles, vehicle and personnel location information, mobile CAD applications, and fire and LE event/incident records reporting systems. Applicable interfaces may differ by Army installation. Examples include but are not limited to, serial (RS-232, 422, 485), analog, contact closure, IP, or proprietary and may involve vendor-unique application programming interfaces (APIs). The CAD system shall provide an integrated GIS-based mapping element. The CAD system shall provide event creation/updates, event/run cards, event closeout, police/fire/EMS dispatch protocols, incident and operational reports, database updating, and receiving populating all 9-1-1 caller data to include Calling Party Number (CPN) and calling device location data. The Contractor shall provide all personnel, infrastructure, equipment, supplies, facilities, transportation, tools, materials, supervision, and other items necessary for system installation, integration, implementation, testing, system operator training, and system warranty and support for the CAD, NG-911 CH solution and NG-911 LIS systems. The CAD system shall have an approved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FEDRAMP) assessor, 3rd Party Assessment Organization (3PAO), to assess its CAD software Suite and network hosting infrastructure to ensure they meet Impact Level 4 (IL-4) requirements. The Contractor shall meet all other commercial cloud requirements as listed in the Defense Information Systems Agency's (DISA's) Cloud Computing Security Requirements Guide (SRG). The Contractor shall meet all the DISA requirements for a Provisional ? Authorization to Operate (P?ATO). The NG-911 LIS solution shall be an on?premise architecture, co-located with applicable regional or local session controllers, providing an LIS capability with IP network discovery of location changes to VoIP/SIP end-user devices. The NG-911 LIS solution shall be JITC tested and approved and on the JITC APL. Requested Information Please provide a response to the Government per the below submission requirements on the following questions to encourage competition and exchange of information. Vendors should identify past (limit to five (5) years) or current contracts that your company has been either prime or subcontractor associated with fielding NG-911 CHS, CAD, and/or LIS solutions on DoD installations. Use the following as guidelines for the responses. Please indicate your current CAGE & DUNS codes. Brief Descriptions of contract or task order projects your company has successfully supported which demonstrate the number of systems implemented and breakout by capability set. NG-911. CAD. LIS. Other relevant capabilities. Size of the systems. Number Call Taker/Dispatch consoles at a given customer. If relevant, list multiple projects/customers. PSAP annual 9-1-1 call volume at a given customer. Describe any challenges faced and how were they resolved. Since this RFI covers three capabilities (CAD, NG9-1-1, LIS), challenges would include identified system interoperability dependencies, government dependencies/infrastructure/policies that need to be in place before any fielding efforts, cyber constraints, cloud hosting constraints, etc. Describe any technical, logistic, and programmatic risks your company foresees in executing the technology changes taking place in the 9-1-1, CAD, and/or LIS industry. Were the capabilities implemented Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) solutions? If so, what was the result (e.g., in terms of schedule, resource, risk)? Describe your company's experience interfacing to 3rd party, ancillary sub-systems. Is your company the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for any or all the solutions implemented? If not, please provide a brief description of existing teaming arrangements that you have to deliver solutions. Which DoD component(s) issued the project requirement/solicitation and subsequent contract award(s) Was your company the prime or sub-contractor? Were contract(s) Firm Fixed Price or Cost Plus? Were contract(s) Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable (LPTA) or Best Value? How many NG911/CAD installs can be completed in a calendar year? What information and/or documents are missing that would otherwise allow your company to submit a proposal? Will your company propose on this effort? Yes, or No? If yes, please indicate your business type (for example, small business, large business, small, disadvantaged business'etc.). If a small business, please indicate if your company would be capable and intend for at least 50 percent of the cost of performance incurred for personnel to be expended for employees of your company (See FAR 52.219-14). Submission Instructions: Any information considered by the responder to be proprietary shall be marked as proprietary. None of the information provided shall contain any classified material or classification markings. No telephone requests or questions will be accepted. All responses to this RFI shall only be submitted in writing to Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG), addressed to the following: Contracting Officer, Katia.Lacoste.civ@army.mil and Contract Specialist, walker.d.bazemore.civ@army.mil. Responses shall be received no later than Close of Business (COB) on 13 FEB 2025. All email transmittals shall be contained in a message less than 10MB in size. Page count shall not exceed five (5) pages for this RFI. Cover page is excluded from the five (5) page limit. This request is issued to develop a viable RFP that will best communicate the Government's requirements to industry through this exchange of information. Responses to this request are voluntary and will not affect any contractor's ability to submit a proposal if, or when, an RFP is released. The requested information is for planning purposes only and does NOT constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise, that a procurement action will be issued. No entitlement to payment by the Government of direct or indirect costs or charges will arise as a result of the submission of information in response to this request. Proprietary information shall NOT be submitted. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any improperly identified proprietary information. UPDATE (4/22/2025) Government response to industry questions have been included as an attachment.