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BACKGROUND: |
UTA purchased the Motorola Harmony iDEN (Integrated Digital Enhanced Network) in the Spring of 2011. The initial cost of the system was $2.8 million and other expansion procurements of $1.2 million bring the total to roughly $4.0 million dollars. This system was procured through a competitive bid and was selected for its advanced features and pricing. It has been a solid radio solution for UTA over 10 years. At the time, it was a state-of-the-art system using cellular technology over an IP based network on a scaled down version of Nextel’s push to talk platform. Over the years, it has provided a very stable radio system platform with uptime availability of 99.999%. Motorola elected to end-of-life (EOL) the iDEN radio system in 2017. From 2017 to 2020 UTA has negotiated with Motorola to continue backend support after EOL. Motorola has since exited from providing this support. UTA requires support of the Motorola Harmony iDen Radio System until it fully migrates to the next solution in approximately 2025. |
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DISCUSSION: |
The proposed repair and maintenance contract with DCTech Inc. is a sole source contract. An internal team evaluated the contract for appropriateness of a sole source contract and on April 14th, 2021, the use of sole source was approved. This will be a 5-year contract with DCTech, Inc. for repair and maintenance of the iDen radio system equipment and support though DCTech, Inc. The 5-year contract total is $832,660, although UTA can cancel early with no penalty. The annual pricing is listed below: 2021 Pricing $138,000.00 2022 Pricing $142,140.00 2023 Pricing $146,404.00 2024 Pricing $150,796.00 2025 Pricing $155,320.00 * Total contract value includes a not-to-exceed $100,000 allotment for parts as needed. Cost Justification: It has been very difficult to find comparable pricing for these support costs because it is for a legacy radio system that has been announced in 2017 that it was end of life. In 2017, UTA elected to continue to support the radio system, because it is performing at a very high level and it is continuing to serve UTA operations requirements, and we had a large spare inventory. Due to the “end-of-life” for this system the Radio Communications department, through its research on the internet and talking with radio providers, cannot find other competition or pricing to determine if these costs are fair and reasonable for this legacy radio system. The support costs are in line in what UTA has been paying in the past, with reasonable increases to support a legacy radio system of this size. With Motorola no longer serving at the prime contractor, and UTA contracting directly with DCTech, Inc., UTA will potentially save $192,317 over the life of the contract Risks: If the iDEN radio system has a catastrophic backend hardware failure, UTA will not have the expertise to bring the system back online. The results of this failure are all modes of transportation would be without radio communications, trains and buses would be grounded until a replacement communication system could be installed. This would cause an unplanned outage that could take weeks to months to bring back online. This would result in high financial cost, possible FRC fines, major hit in public perception, and UTA’s reputation. |