Specifications include, but are not limited to: Urbandale Community School District, hereafter referred to as Applicant, is requesting proposals for Self-Provisioned Network (Applicant Owned and Operated Network) and Services Provided Over Third-Party Networks for delivery of wide area network (WAN) services to the district. a. The first service is for services provided over third-party networks. This is an Erate Category 1 service option defined as point-to-point broadband service delivered over a service provider or other third party owned network. This service option is to represent any technology neutral third-party transport mediums including both fiber and non-fiber options. The service is a fully managed service, with the service provider supplying the equipment, provisioning the bandwidth and providing technical support/management of the service. b. The second service is for a self-provisioned (applicant owned and operated) network. c. The third service is for Category 1 network equipment to place any self provisioned network solutions into service. a. Applicant will consider traditional network designs (such as hub and spoke) or alternative proposals. The applicant’s stated decision criteria (outlined in the RFP) will be used to determine if an award is made as a result of this RFP. The applicant has, in accordance with E-rate guidelines, rated cost of service as the highest weighted factor in its decision criteria matrix. b. Due to current and future bandwidth needs, respondents are encouraged to provide dedicated infrastructure to Applicant. Designs are encouraged to utilize the private Network approach, where there exists no other aggregation between sites and modulating equipment at each site is dedicated to Applicant and not shared in any way with other customers. If this is not possible, then designs should limit the use of shared infrastructure as much as possible. c. Respondents should clearly illustrate proposed network design and construction routes. Respondents should show evidence that they looked at alternate routes for the build and should provide narrative language supporting rationale for chosen build route(s). d. Applicant is not advocating or mandating any preconceived network design or construction route and leaves this decision up to the vendor to present their best solution while recognizing the cited termination locations.
