WAN Emulator

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is seeking a Wide Area Network (WAN) emulator to support research on 5G Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) systems. The emulator must be FPGA-based with dual 10GBE ports and support programmable network impairments such as latency up to 500ms with 5μs resolution, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth throttling across 4 to 16 simultaneous traffic streams. It must comply with O-RAN.TIFG.TS.E2E-Test.0-R004-v08.00 test cases 6.11–6.14 and integrate with IEEE 1588v2 (PTP), ITU-T G.827x, and G.781 (SyncE) timing and synchronization standards. The solution must include two single-mode and two multi-mode 10GBE SFPs, two BIDI SFPs, one year of licensing and technical support, and a programmable API for automated testing. All deliverables are to be delivered to NTIA.ITS at 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305, Building 1, Room 2226, within 12 weeks of order receipt. The acquisition is conducted under a firm-fixed-price purchase order using simplified acquisition procedures, evaluated under the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) method, where technical acceptability is a pass/fail threshold based on full compliance with the Statement of Work, and award is made to the lowest-priced responsive offer. The solicitation, issued as RFQ-26-00118, requires proposals submitted electronically via email to ecrawford@doc.gov by June 8, 2026, in a single file not exceeding five pages for the technical portion, using Arial 11 pt or Times New Roman 12 pt font with one-inch margins. Compliance with Department of Commerce Acquisition Manual clauses covering contracting officer authority, organizational conflict of interest, IT security, and place of acceptance is mandatory. No set-aside provisions apply, socioeconomic certifications are not required, and no UEI or CAGE codes are mandated. Specific packaging, marking, or MIL-STD requirements are deferred to the Statement of Work, which is the controlling document for all technical and delivery specifications. Payment and