RE: [802SEC] 802 Plenary network expenditures
As a past treasurer, I agree with both Bill and Howard. A competitive bidding process for the contract will probably take about the same time the similar process takes for meeting management services. There is no way it would complete by the July plenary and probably not by the November plenary.
It would therefore make sense to enter into a contract for something like a year. During the run of that contract, 802 should create an RFQ and go out for competitive bids for the next contract cycle. The motion doesn't say the run of the proposed multi-session contract. Bill, what is the intended duration of the first contract?
Regards,
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Quackenbush [mailto:billq@attglobal.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 11:11 AM
To: Howard Frazier
Cc: stds-802-sec@ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] 802 Plenary network expenditures
Howard,
I have searched all of the IEEE, IEEE-SA and Computer Society rules that
I can find and have found only the following section of the IEEE
Policies that deals with competitive bidding on contracts for IEEE
Standards meetings.
"10.2.16 - CONTRACTING
IEEE Standards meetings may require contracts for various services.
These services include but are not limited to hotel services and
meeting management services.
The IEEE Standards Sponsor committee or designee shall review all
contracts connected with running a meeting. It is encouraged that
these contracts be reviewed by IEEE Conference Services prior to
signing. Contracts are subject to limitations as defined in Policy
12.6.
All meeting contracts shall be maintained in a readily accessible
file at the IEEE Standards Department for audit purposes.
It is the responsibility of the IEEE Standards Sponsor chair or
working group chair to send a copy of the contract, when executed,
to the IEEE Standards Department promptly for retention within the
IEEE.
In signing a contract, competitive bidding procedures shall be
used whenever practical. If competitive bidding is not practiced,
the IEEE Standards Sponsor committee or working group chair shall
be prepared to provide justification."
If you are aware of other rules dealing with the requirement for
competitive bidding procedures, please provide me with pointers to them.
My observation about section 10.2.6 is the "conditional shall" structure
in the last paragraph with a subjective criterion for when the shall is
to be invoked. To my reading, the section states that the use of
competitive bidding procedures is desirable, but not required if you
think you have a good reason why it is not practical.
In light of the amount of time and effort required to generate a
complete RFP, evaluate bids, evaluate bidders and establish evaluation
criteria (other than I think those guys/gals have the competence we
think we want, their price seems okay and they are easy to talk to and
work with), it is not clear to me that the use of a formal competitive
bidding process is worth it, especially given our limited personnel
resources for such an effort. Your mileage may differ.
The fees that we are considering are not cheap. However, we believe
that we want providers with a high level of competence. The wireless
working groups, who will be paying a large fraction of the fees as their
attendees are a large fraction of Plenary session attendees, depend on a
highly available network to conduct their business. If you compute the
loaded cost a high competent network type for the amount of time that it
takes to maintain and update the equipment, travel, setup, test,
operate, manage and tear down the network and allow the provider to make
a reasonable profit, the fees we are looking at are not unreasonable.
Again, your mileage may differ.
Your thoughts?
Thanks,
wlq
Howard Frazier wrote:
>
> Bill,
>
> This seems like an awful lot of money to spend on a network that
> is only running for one week. I believe that this contract should
> be put out for bids, and according to the SA and Computer Society
> rules, I believe that it must be.
>
> Howard
>
> Bill Quackenbush wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > Given the 30% increase in Plenary session attendance from 11/02 to 3/03
> > and even greater projected attendance at the 7/03 and 11/03 Plenary
> > sessions, the $25k/Pleanry session budget networking does not appear to
> > be enough. Given the load and dependence a number of the WGs are
> > placing on the Plenary session network, I believe that we need more
> > bandwidth to the outside world and we need full-time professional
> > network management.
> >
> > We had a single T1 to the outside world at DFW which was clearly not
> > enough and for which we likely set a world record for sustained load.
> > We are working on 4xT1 for SF with a cost of something like $8k.
> >
> > We are also talking with I.D.E.A.L. Technologies about a contract to
> > configure, operate and manage the network on a full-time basis.
> >
> > To that end I make the following motion.
> >
> > That the budget for the network at a LMSC Plenary session be increased
> > from $25k to $30k with a maximum expenditure of $33k/session and that
> > the LMSC is authorized to enter into a multi-session contract contract
> > for the configuration, operation and management of said network subject
> > to the above budget and expenditure limits.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > wlq
> >
> > .
> >
> >