Unified VOIP Telecommunications RFP - 2021
Bids shall be submitted in accordance with the Bid Specifications. Sealed bids will be received by Ben Rimes, Director of Technology at the Administrative office located at 302 West St. Joseph St, Coloma MI, 49038 on or before April 30th at 1 pm (local time). At that time, all bids will be opened and read. Due to the current COVID-19 protective measures we request that Bidders do not attend the opening. Results will be shared electronically. The Board of Education will not consider or accept a proposal received after the due date. Questions and bid submissions should be directed to Ben Rimes, Director of Technology at [email protected]. All questions and responses will be posted to the district website alongside the original RFP. All bid submissions should be submitted physically; no electronic, oral, or facsimile bids will be accepted.
Pre-Bid Meeting
Due to COVID-19 protective measures there will not be a general purpose pre-bid large group meeting. All potential bidders are strongly encouraged to schedule a pre-bid site visit starting on April 12th, 2021. The site visit will include a tour of each building, existing technology infrastructure locations (MDF and IDFs), and existing telecommunications locations (legacy PBX phone systems and public address systems).
Each Proposal must be accompanied by a sworn and notarized statement disclosing any familial relationship that exists between the owner or any employee of the contractor and any member of the Board of Education or the Superintendent of Coloma Community Schools. The Board of Education will not accept a Proposal that does not include this sworn and notarized disclosure statement.
Each Proposal must also be accompanied by a sworn and notarized statement certifying that the contractor is not an Iran Linked Business. The Board of Education will not accept a Proposal that does not include this sworn and notarized statement.
The bid documents will be available at Coloma Community Schools Administrative office on Friday, April 2nd.
Full bid document, specifications, and required bid proposal documents is attached below.
Q and A for the VOIP Telecommunications RFP
- Are you looking for the bidder to provide the necessary carrier services or are we reusing the existing?
- Yes, we are looking for solutions for carrier services to be offered in the bid. We have no plans to use our existing services currently used for our POTS lines.
- Do you have a list of carrier services currently in place?
- We currently use AT&T for our existing POTS lines. We only plan to use five of those existing lines to service our FAX lines.
- Would you prefer a distributed platform with local call control in each building or a centralized solution running within your provided VMware environment or a VMware environment provided by the bidder?
- We are looking for a solution that balances efficient management with flexible features of the proposed system. We do have a virtualized environment we can host services, but would be willing to entertain stand alone equipment.
- Do you have a logical diagram showing how the data network is interconnected?
- Yes, a network diagram can be provided via email.
- How many Direct Inward Dial (DID) numbers are you proposing to port from your current system to VOIP?
- We currently have 40 direct dial numbers still in use, but will likely need no more than 35
- What does the district currently pay for phone service?
- Between our monthly line fees and long distance, the district currently spends between $1300-$1500 a month.
- Are we looking for Federal or Michigan e911 compliance?
- We are looking for full e911 compliance with all state and federal requirements.
- Will the bidder be responsible for installing any desktop clients?
- No, district IT personal will be responsible for installing desktop clients.