Connections II Contract

• Contract structure and scope
• Using Connections II
• Download the contract

Contract structure and scope

Fixed-price and time-and-materials task orders

Task orders under Connections II can be firm fixed-price or time-and-materials. This contract will not support cost reimbursable orders.

Choose fixed-price if the order is defined sufficiently for the contractor to clearly define essential requirements and deliverables.

Telecommunications transport services are not provided under Connections II

Network services, such as dial tone and services that provide transport and access to and between customer sites, are out of scope. These include services provided by incumbent local exchange carriers, competitive local exchange carriers, wireless telephone carriers, interexchange carriers, or Internet service providers.

Unlike Connections, there are no separate categories customers must select

Unlike its predecessor, Connections II does not have separate categories that require customer selection before a task order can be competed and awarded. Connections II has four solution sets which help share its capability.

The solutions sets are:

• Communications and networking
• Building or campus facility preparation
• Operations, administration, and management (OA&M)
• Customer service and technical support

Vendors who compete for task orders can provide labor or equipment from any or all solution areas in their proposals. Vendors can also provide new solutions and support for an agency’s legacy platforms.

Connections II provides telecommunications in a building or campus, while GWACs provide a broad spectrum of IT solutions

The scope of a GWAC covers the broad spectrum of all information technology (IT) solutions. Connections II is focused on telecommunications in a building or campus, providing a select group of highly qualified, thoroughly experienced industry partners to focus on such tasks. Connections II has a full telecommunications labor set which supports these tasks and pre-evaluated communications and networking equipment.

top

Using Connections II

You must provide equal consideration to all Connections II awardees for task orders

Orders will be competed under the fair opportunity process in FAR Part 16.505. This means all orders must provide equal consideration for all Connections II awardees unless you follow an exception to fair opportunity.

There are no limitations to the size or complexity of tasks

No task is too big or small for Connections II. While Connections II is built to handle complex solutions, it can also handle simple procurements.

Connections II contractors can coordinate your agency’s Networx or regional telecommunications contracts

Connections II contractors can act as a coordinator or monitor and work with contractors on other GSA telecommunications vehicles, such as Networx, to produce a complete solution. Examples include monitoring end-to-end performance, developing business cases, or acting as a single point of contact with all involved contractors.

Performance-based task orders are supported under Connections II

Pursuant to FAR 37.6, performance-based contracting techniques will be applied to task orders to the maximum extent practicable.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are supported

The contract will be capable of supporting a specified performance level and/or quality of service level in a Service Level Agreement (SLA). The SLA may include:

• Network metrics (e.g., availability, response time)
• Billing metrics (e.g., the error rate of charges billed under the contract)
• Customer service metrics (e.g., the percentage of calls to the customer service function that were answered in less than 30 seconds)
• Security metrics (e.g., the probability of detecting attempted intrusions into the system and the associated false-alarm rate)

The contractor will describe to the customer how the data will be collected and provided to the customer and provide an acceptable reporting mechanism that tracks the requirements agreed to in the SLA.

top

Download the contract

top