DG11--Sources Sought - Guest Wireless Internet Services for the Fort Meade, SD VA Medical Center

The Fort Meade, SD VA Medical Center is conducting market research in accordance with FAR 17.207 Exercise of Options for Guest Wireless Internet Services as described in the Preliminary Performance Work Statement below. This is a SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE only looking for businesses to provide the services listed in the Preliminary Performance Work Statement below for market research purposes. No proposals are being requested or accepted with this notice. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR PROPOSALS OR PRICING AND NO CONTRACT SHALL BE AWARDED FROM THIS NOTICE. This notice shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Responses to this notice will be treated only as information for the Government to consider as part of their market research efforts. The information provided will be used by the Government in developing its acquisition strategy regarding possible set aside for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned, Veteran-Owned, and other socio-economic categories of small business. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. The Government does not intend to pay for the information submitted in response to this notice and parties responding will not be entitled to payment for direct or indirect costs incurred in responding to this notice. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 517810, All Other Telecommunications, with an SBA Small Business Size Standard of $40.0 Million. If you are a vendor capable of providing the requested information and required services described below with competitive pricing, send your information with a description of proof of capability and answers to all questions to: Alisha.Milander@va.gov on or before Monday, April 13, 2026 at 12:00 PM Central Time. Please provide answers as appropriate to the following questions in the table below with your response to this Sources Sought. Failure to respond accurately to the following questions may affect the acquisition strategy. Failure to respond to the questions at all, or not respond to select individual questions, will result in your response being determined as non-responsive. 1.  Please provide all socio-economic categories of your firm (e.g., SDVOSB, VOSB, WOSB, Large Business, 8a, etc.) as well as your firm s SAM Unique Entity ID number (replaces DUNS number) and Government Contract POC. 2.  State whether the requested services may be ordered against a government contract awarded to your organization (e.g Federal Supply Schedule (FSS), General Services Administration (GSA), etc.). 3.  State if subcontracting is contemplated for this requirement and what percentage of the work will be subcontracted and for what tasks. 4. Provide estimated lead time to deliver a fully functioning solution as described in the Preliminary Performance Work Statement below. 5. Complete the ITEM INFORMATION directly below this section for market research pricing for the services described in the Preliminary Performance Work Statement. ITEM INFORMATION ITEM NUMBER DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES QUANTITY UNIT UNIT PRICE AMOUNT 0001 12.00 MO $___________ $___________ BH-FM SERVICE CONTRACT FOR GUEST WIRELESS INTERNET MONITORING AND MAINTENANCE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT Contract Period: Base POP Begin: 05-01-2026 POP End: 04-30-2027 PRINCIPAL NAICS CODE: 517810 - All Other Telecommunications PRODUCT/SERVICE CODE: DG11 - IT and Telecom - Network: Telecom Access Services *If applicable, VAAR 852.219-75 VA Notice of Limitations on Subcontracting Certificate of Compliance for Services and Construction, will apply to the potential solicitation if set-aside for Veteran Owned Small-Businesses or Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small-Businesses.*  *If applicable, FAR 52.219-14 Limitations on Subcontracting, will apply to the potential solicitation if set-aside for Small-Businesses.*  DISCLAIMER This Sources Sought is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. All information received in response to this Sources Sought that is marked as proprietary will be handled accordingly. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this Sources Sought. The deadline for this information is 12:00 PM Central Time on Monday, April 13, 2026. PRELIMINARY PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS) Guest Wireless Internet Monitoring and Maintenance at the Fort Meade, SD VA Medical Center Campus GENERAL: This is a non-personnel services contract to monitor, report, and maintain internet access provided to students, patients, and guests at the Fort Meade VA Medical Center Campus. The Veterans Affairs shall not exercise any supervision or control over the contract service providers performing the services herein. Such contract service providers shall be accountable solely to the Contractor who, in turn, is responsible to the Veterans Affairs. Description of Services/Introduction: The contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, transportation, tools, materials, and supervision necessary to perform guest wireless internet monitoring and maintenance services as defined in this Performance Work Statement except for those items specified as government furnished property and services. The contractor shall perform to the standards in this contract. Background: The site consists of a major hospital with surrounding buildings. The guest wireless internet service is limited to Buildings 113, 145, 146, and 148. In addition to patients that visit the facility for periodic appointments, some are required to stay overnight or for multiple days depending on their medical condition and prognosis. The VA recognizes that its patient population and family members use the internet as a means of both researching information as well as remaining in communication with friends and family members on a near-constant basis. As a result, it is our desire to provide these patients and their family members access to the internet to allow them to continue their communication. The VA also recognizes that the proper operation and functioning of a major health care facility requires its staff to have constant network and internet access. Therefore, the intent of this initiative is to provide our patients and their families internet access without impinging on the efficient and effective operation of the hospital and its clinics. Scope: The contractor shall provide monitoring and maintenance services for the existing guest wireless internet at the Fort Meade VA Medical Center. Period of Performance: The Period of Performance shall be for one (1) Year. The Period of Performance reads as follows: 05/1/2026 04/30/2027 General Information: Federal Government Holidays: New Year s Day Labor Day Martin Luther King Jr. s Birthday Columbus Day Washington s Birthday Veterans Day Memorial Day Thanksgiving Day Juneteenth National Independence Day Christmas Day Independence Day Hours of Operation: The Contractor shall provide internet access services 24 hours a day, seven (7) days a week, in accordance with the specific tasks outlined in Section 4 of this PWS. The contractor is responsible for conducting office-hour business, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. MT, Monday thru Friday except Federal Holidays or when the Veterans Affairs facility is closed due to local or national emergencies, administrative closings, or similar Veterans Affairs directed facility closings. Place of Performance: The work to be performed under this contract will be performed at VA Black Hills Health Care System, Fort Meade VA Medical Center, 113 Comanche Rd, Fort Meade, SD 57741. Type of Contract: Firm Fixed-Price Contract. Post Award Conference/Periodic Progress Meetings: The Contractor agrees to attend any post award conference convened by the contracting activity or contract administration office in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation Subpart 42.5. The contracting officer, Contracting Officers Representative (COR), and other Veterans Affairs personnel, as appropriate, may meet periodically with the contractor to review the contractor's performance. At these meetings the contracting officer will apprise the contractor of how the Veterans Affairs views the contractor's performance and the contractor will apprise the Veterans Affairs of problems, if any, being experienced. Appropriate action shall be taken to resolve outstanding issues. These meetings shall be at no additional cost to the Veterans Affairs. Security: The Contractor shall have any and all on-site contract personnel read and sign TMS 20939. The Contractor shall submit completed forms for each employee to the COR prior to that employee being deployed on-site. The Contractor shall adhere to the applicable requirements in APPENDIX C of VA Handbook 6500.6 as specified in the IT Contract Security section of this contract. GOVERNMENT FURNISHED ITEMS AND SERVICES: Items: The Veterans Affairs will provide network equipment. Building 113: 1 Fortinet FortiSwitch 248E-POE Switch 1 Fortinet FortiGate 100E Security Appliance 1 Fortinet 108E-FPOE Switch 18 Fortinet FortiAP 320C Access Points Building 145: 1 Fortinet FortiGate 80E-POE Switch 4 Fortinet FortiAP 320C Access Points Building 146: 1 Fortinet FortiGate 80E-POE Switch 2 Fortinet FortiAP 320C Access Points Building 148: 1 Fortinet FortiGate 80E-POE Switch 1 Fortinet FortiGate 100E Security Appliance 1 Fortinet FortiSwitch 248E-POE Switch 20 Fortinet FortiAP 320C Access Points Services: VA will provide to the contractor the information homepage for paragraph 4.b. of this PWS. CONTRACTOR FURNISHED ITEMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES: The Contractor shall furnish all supplies, equipment, and services required to perform work under this contract that are not listed under Section 2 of this PWS. SPECIFIC TASKS: The Contractor shall monitor, report, and maintain internet access to be provided to students, patients, and guests at the Fort Meade VA Medical Center Campus. The Contractor shall provide and maintain Fortinet licensing & support for all devices necessary for proper operations. The Contractor shall provide a splash screen homepage at login displaying information security warning, public access information, and VA non-liability disclaimer. The Contractor shall submit a copy of the proposed display screen to the COR 10 days prior to start of contract performance. The Contractor shall provide an introduction page with usage agreements for acknowledgement at the time of login with information on the program, rules and restrictions, and usage agreements. If no agreement acknowledgement is received from user, the Contractor shall deny access to said user (Users of the guest access must acknowledge that they are aware of the risk of using a public network). This guest wireless network must permit user access without username or password authentication. The Contractor shall provide help desk services via a toll-free number for end users to contact in order to resolve common end user difficulties in connecting their devices to the system. Help desk services availability will be in accordance with days and hours outlined in paragraph 1.e.2. of this Performance Work Statement. The Contractor shall provide technical support, network monitoring, and on-site services and coordination with the local network provider. Upon notification of a fault, the Contractor shall work to diagnose, troubleshoot, and resolve the issues remotely within two hours of notification during business hours. Should the problem require on-site repair, the Contractor shall respond with on-site technical support within 48 hours of reported issue to resolve the equipment failure/issue. The Contractor shall provide any required updated software and firmware revisions. The Contractor shall provide monthly system reporting. Submitted reports shall include: Security Analysis Web Usage Network Summary Network Summary by AP The Contract shall provide a web filtering service to prevent users from visiting inappropriate sites. The service will allow additional blocking as determined by Customer policies and procedures as determined by the VA. The contractor shall update the filtering service upon receipt of revised filter lists. In the event a Web page is blocked, the Web filtering service will allow notification to the user that the Web page was blocked due to VA web policy. This service will also provide mitigation for common Internet Malware. The Contractor shall maintain log files for one year providing these files to COR upon request. APPLICABLE PUBLICATIONS (CURRENT EDITIONS) The Contractor must abide by all applicable regulations, publications, manuals, and local policies and procedures. VA HANDBOOK 6500.6, CONTRACT SECURITY (APRIL 22, 2024) PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENT SUMMARY: The contractor service requirements are summarized into performance objectives that relate directly to mission essential items. The performance threshold briefly describes the minimum acceptable levels of service required for each requirement. These thresholds are critical to mission success. Performance Objective (The Service required usually a shall statement) Standard Performance Threshold (This is the maximum error rate. It could possibly be Zero deviation from standard ) Method of Surveillance PRS # 1 The Contractor shall provide and maintain licensing & support for all devices necessary for proper operations. (PWS para 4.a) Provide our patients and their families access to the internet while they are using our facilities in Fort Meade. Zero deviation from Standard Periodic Surveillance PRS # 2 The Contractor shall provide technical support, network monitoring, and on-site services and coordination with the local network provider. (PWS para 4.e) Remote support Two (2) hours On-Site support 48 hours 90% Per Incident Report PRS # 3 The Contract shall provide a web filtering service to prevent users from visiting inappropriate sites. (PWS para 4.h) Less than one incident of accidental visit of inappropriate site per 1,000 log-ins 95% Comparing Incident Reports to Log Files DELIVERABLES SCHEDULE Deliverable Frequency Medium of Transmission # of Copies Submit To Reviewed and Signed TMS 20939 (PWS 1.e.vi.1.) Prior to employee being deployed on-site Email/PDF One Each COR Copy of Splash Screen Homepage at Login Display (PWS 4.b.) 10 days prior to start of contract performance Email One COR Monthly Reports (PWS 4.g.) Monthly Email One COR All Log Files (PWS 4.i.) Upon Request of COR Email One COR