Notice of Intent to Sole Source in accordance with FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items and FAR Subpart 13. 5 Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items.  The Indian Health Services has a requirement to procure VOIP services under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other will satisfy agency requirements. The Government intends to award a Firm-Fixed price Sole Source contract to Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative. The associated North America Classification Systems (NAICS) Code is 517311 and the Business Size Standard is 1,500 in number of employees.

Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative provides service and support to an existing hosted voice over internet protocol (VOIP) telephony system at four (4) locations.  The vendor is the primary provider and owner of the infrastructure service area. Competition would create a substantial duplication of effort and cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition as well as unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency need.  Changing vendors would result in additional equipment expenses such as circuits, equipment replacement, training of staff, restructuring of the telephone directory, and downtime causing a disruption to patient care.

Period of Performance:  01/01/2020 through 12/31/2024  (Base year plus 4 option years)

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals.   A determination not to compete this requirement, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the U.S. Government.   Interested persons may identify their interests and capability to respond to this requirement no later than 12/10/2019, 2:00PM Central Time. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the Government in future procurements.