REQUEST FOR CalREN PROPOSAL Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Service Greater Los Angeles Area Pre-Application Briefing Session: November 18, 1993 10:00 am - 12:00 noon Pacific Bell 1010 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. Auditorium (Located on the first floor) Date to Submit Applications: February 15, 1994 by 5:00 PM Where to Submit Applications: The CalREN Program c/o Pacific Bell 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 3S306 San Ramon, CA 94583 REQUEST FOR CalREN PROPOSAL ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE (ATM) SERVICE Greater Los Angeles Area October 15, 1993 Request for CalREN Proposal Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Service Greater Los Angeles Area TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction I.A CalREN Overview I.B ATM Service Description I.C Proposals And Proposal Selection I.D Restrictions II. Project Guidelines & Criteria II.A Project Description II.B Project Participants And Contributions II.C Expected Benefits II.D Project Leadership & Management Plan III. Proposal Process III.A Proposal Submission III.B Proposal Format SECTION 1: Executive Summary SECTION 2: Body Of The Proposal SECTION 3: Project Leadership & Management Plan SECTION 4: Attachments To Proposal ATTACHMENT: ATM Product Description I. INTRODUCTION I.A CalREN OVERVIEW CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, is Pacific Bell's program to stimulate the development and dissemination of high speed communications applications. CalREN's goal is to promote the development of applications that: o Improve education and health care delivery o Improve business and governmental processes o Facilitate new business development and job creation o Improve the economic competitiveness of California CalREN, an established trust of Pacific Bell, will promote application development by sponsoring demonstration projects which are dedicated towards these goals. CalREN's sponsorship is the pro bono access to and use of specific Pacific Bell network services for a specific period of time: ATM, SMDS, Frame Relay, Centrex IS, SDS-IS, and SDS-56. This solicitation is for CalREN projects in the Greater Los Angeles Area targeted at ATM service. For purposes of this RFP, the Greater Los Angeles Area is defined by Area Codes 213, 310, and 818. Approved ATM projects in the Greater Los Angeles Area will be prioritized and implemented during the second and third quarter of 1994. CalREN will solicit additional project proposals under separate solicitations as outlined in Briefing Package No. 2 & 3. Additional CalREN overview information can be found in the CalREN Briefing Package No. 1 (7/23/93) and Briefing Package No.2 (9/7/93). For copies, please fax your request to CalREN at (510) 277-0673. I.B ATM SERVICE DESCRIPTION ATM is a cell-based switching scheme, which allows for the effective support of applications requiring variable bandwidth with maximum rates in the range of several hundreds of megabits per second. ATM will offer a robust platform supporting a number of applications that mixed media integration. Pacific Bell plans to offer ATM as a high-speed public network communication service. The initial ATM service offering will provide a sequence preserving, connection oriented transport service with customer access at DS-3 (44.736 Mbps) and OC3c (155.52 Mbps - optical) rates. Implementations will be staggered over several months, beginning in April, 1994. See attached ATM Product Description for additional details. I.C PROPOSALS AND PROPOSAL SELECTION I.C.1 Proposals Proposed ATM projects must be focused on high-impact applications in the experimental, wide-area, high-performance network environment. CalREN encourages collaborative proposals that demonstrate broad based or "global" end-user benefits. The projects should be limited in scope and the application should be the "core" of the project. Projects are expected to be 12 to 24 months in duration. CalREN funding will not exceed 24 months. CalREN envisions supporting and funding access for projects in the early stages of ATM service development. Projects should explore activities that deal with the creation of new products and processes and their potential for commercial application. It is intended that these activities will result in applications development at the pre-competitive level. CalREN funded projects are limited to demonstrations, trials or pilots. Public, private, commercial, and non-profit organizations are eligible to apply for CalREN funding. I.C.2 Proposal Selection CalREN will utilize an external council of private and public industry experts. The CalREN Council will review, prioritize, and help approve projects for CalREN funding according to the criteria in Section II. CalREN plans to award approximately twenty-five ATM connections in LATA I and twenty-five connections in LATA 5. During the proposal evaluation process, the CalREN Council will evaluate many elements of proposed projects. Where technical evaluations are essentially equal in merit, cost to CalREN will be considered in determining the successful offeror. Generally, CalREN expects to award one ATM connection per participant. CalREN expects to receive many more worthwhile proposals than it can fund. Because of this budget limit, we may have to decline meritorious projects. This does not in any way reflect on the value of the idea or organization involved, but rather is a result of limited resources. I.D RESTRICTIONS I.D.1 General Restrictions CalREN will fund the installation and monthly service charge for the Pacific Bell ATM service. CalREN's support of a project cannot directly cause the disconnection or deferment of commercial telecommunications services from any telecommunications carrier. The project itself should not directly create an unfair technological or competitive advantage for one company or small group of companies. Proposals that involve final product development beyond the stage of product prototype/feasibility demonstrations will be regarded as out of scope. Projects should limit their scope to demonstration or proof of concept tests. Production network deployment, generally, is outside the scope of CalREN. (Example: Two projects are presented for remote X-Ray diagnosis. The first project involves 12 doctors or institutions from different disciplines who wish to deploy a 12 end-user network to test a remote X-Ray networking application. The second project involves a similar application, but 200 to 300 end-users would be involved. The second proposal would be perceived as a production network, too large for a test, and would therefore be out of scope for CalREN funding.) CalREN and Pacific Bell assumes no liability for costs associated with the preparation or submission of proposals. There is no commitment by CalREN to make any awards on any application or to make a specific number of awards. 1.D.2 Proprietary Information CalREN and Pacific Bell assume no liability for disclosure of proprietary information. Do not include any proprietary information in your proposals such as trade secrets, proprietary commercial or financial information, or confidential personal information. Information contained in unsuccessful proposals will remain the property of the proposer. CalREN and Pacific Bell will, however, retain copies of all proposals. CalREN RFP Summary: This is the second RFP to be issued for solicitation of CalREN projects. Geography: Greater Los Angeles Area Target Service: Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Issue Date: October 15, 1993 Submission Date: February 15, 1994 Implementation: Staggered during the 2nd& 3d quarter 1994 CalREN will solicit additional proposals as follows (timelines provided in CalREN Briefing Packages): o Health care access for S.F. and L.A. (SMDS, Frame Relay, Centrex IS, SDS-IS, SDS-56) o Education access for S.F. and L.A. (SMDS, Frame Relay, Centrex IS, SDS-IS, SDS-56) o Community, Government, and Commercial Services access S.F. and L.A. (SMDS, Frame Relay, Centrex IS, SDS-IS, SDS-56) II. PROJECT GUIDELINES & CRITERIA Proposals will be evaluated on the following criteria. II.A PROJECT DESCRIPTION Projects must be described in terms of proposed applications which require a significant high-speed data communications component, specifically ATM access bandwidth of DS-3 (44.736 Mbps) or OC3c (155.52 Mbps). Project applications should support one or more of CalREN's goals stated in the introduction. Additionally, the project should stimulate the advancement of the growth, integration, consumption and productization of ATM-based mixed media applications. Projects will be considered primarily on the basis of the quality of the proposed activity to be undertaken. However, each ATM project must clearly contain the requirement for ATM-speed connections to at least one pair of end-users. Activities which merely use the ATM backbone links to derive lower speed services are not being sought. Projects need to address a specific and identifiable application(s). Examples of projects may be applications that advance ATM based services and infrastructure use for: o Education o Health Care o Improved business and governmental processes o Environmental monitoring o Control and distribution of intelligence o Advanced manufacturing processes o Stimulation of commercial product development This list should not be considered all inclusive. CalREN will consider projects in other areas. Generally, approved projects should be demonstration, proof of concept, prototype, trial, or pilot in nature and scope. CalREN seeks new and innovative applications as well as projects which extend the availability of an existing application, product or process to a new or expanded set of users. II.B PROJECT PARTICIPANTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS CalREN encourages intra-industry and inter-industry collaboration and cooperation. Generally, multiple organization participation is expected. Team projects are promoted because they: o Permit small companies to gain access to advanced technology and resources o Provide an environment for standards-setting activities o Allow participants to leverage their resources with others o Provide an environment for users and suppliers to forge closer relationships than those in the typical customer-vendor relationship Participants must contribute to the project in one or more ways. Proposals need to identify key personnel and specify each participant's contribution. Contribution examples include: funds, in-kind services, equipment, applications, applications development, personnel, or other (non-Pacific Bell) communications service. CalREN reserves the right to consolidate ATM services for a single organization which submits multiple proposals. For example, an organization has multiple departments all located in a single campus. The X-Ray division submits a medical proposal and the video division submits a teleconferencing proposal. Both projects are approved. CalREN would look to provision a single ATM line for both divisions to share. Organizations with multiple submissions for CalREN projects will be required to designate a coordinator or single-point-of-contact for the entire organization. This contact would typically be the organization's Telecommunications or Information Systems Manager. II.C EXPECTED BENEFITS Proposed projects must clearly identify the expected benefits that will be delivered at the conclusion of the project. Projects may have direct benefits or may demonstrate potential benefits. Proposals must include how the benefits will be measured, documented and distributed. The proposal should target a clearly defined population of beneficiaries. A description of the target population, its size, needs and demographic characteristics should be included in the proposed project. All the results and developments of a project need not be in the public domain. Portions of a project may be proprietary and the rights may be solely owned by one or more participants. Proposals must clearly distinguish the public and proprietary portions. A balance of proprietary information protection and intellectual property rights protection should be agreed upon among the participants. Pacific Bell and CalREN do not request or require rights to any project development. II.D PROJECT LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT PLAN The proposal must set forth plans for proper organization, staffing, and management of the activity and must demonstrate that the leadership of the activity has the requisite experience to assure success. Each project must have a designated project leader. Generally, projects should be lead by the applications developer. Pacific Bell and CalREN will not formulate or lead projects. The project leader and participants should provide information on their leadership experience. Success in other collaborative projects is a positive factor in proposal review. Projects must have well-defined objectives, measurable milestones and time frames. CalREN seeks projects of twelve to twenty-four months duration, measured from the installation date. The duration of the project should be long enough to develop, implement and measure the benefits of the proposed application. The project management plan must have a clear statement of work. This plan needs to provide a detailed description of the applications development work. The plan should be a substantial portion of the total proposal. Describe the participant's approach for carrying out the proposed activity. List well-defined objectives, measurable milestones and time frames. State expected project start and completion dates. Include the expected connection date of the requested ATM services. III. PROPOSAL PROCESS III.A PROPOSAL SUBMISSION; CalREN's objective is to have the first ATM projects up and running in the Los Angeles Area in early 1994 with subsequent projects implemented during the first three quarters of 1994. CalREN will accept proposals on February 15, 1994. Projects requiring port access in both Northern and Southern California should submit their request to the earlier RFP (The San Francisco Bay Area ATM RFP) and specify the Southern California requirements. The project participants must recruit and identify an inter-exchange carrier for the inter-LATA transport. If the project is approved, all port requirements would be approved and allocated upon approval. The implementation time frames, however, may vary. Additionally; projects which require a mix of technologies, for example ATM and Frame Relay must be submitted in response to one of the ATM RFPs. If the project is approved the allocations of technologies will made at the time of approval. Implementation time frames, however, may vary. ATM RFP Timeline ATM RFP Issued October 15, 1993 Briefing Session: November 18, 1993, 10:00 am - 12:00 noon Pacific Bell 1010 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. Auditorium Date to Submit February 15, 1994 Approvals March 31, 1994 o Proposals should be limited to 25 pages including the Executive Summary. A maximum of 10 pages may be included in attachments. o Please submit 5 copies to: The CalREN Program c/o Pacific Bell 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 3S306 San Ramon, CA 94583 o Proposals received after 5:00 PM on February 15, 1994 will not be considered. o Receipt of proposals will be acknowledged. CalREN plans to hold a briefing session from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon on November 18, 1993 to answer any questions about CalREN or this Request for Proposal. Attendance at this meeting is not required and is not necessary to develop a promising proposal. The meeting will be held at the 1010 Wilshire Blvd., Auditorium, Los Angeles III.B PROPOSAL FORMAT The project proposals must follow the format outlined below, including use of the section and subsection numbering: SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY; ( 2 Pages ) This executive summary will be evaluated based on its merit before the remainder of the technical proposal and will be influential in the early identification of high interest offerings. CalREN plans to make public the executive summaries of approved projects. 1.a Project Title 1.b Project Description Enumerate the project's specific objectives and summarize the anticipated benefits of the proposed application. 1.c Project Use of ATM Services Describe how the ATM services will be used. Identify the requested ATM services by location. Include access speed and requested service duration (12 -24 months). The number and duration of the ATM services must be justified in the body of the proposal. [Note that the price of the ATM services cannot need to be stated since they are not public yet.] 1.d Project Leader and Participants Identify the project leader including their name, address, telephone number and organizational affiliation. Identify key personnel who will be collaborating in the project. 1.e Project Plan Provide a summary of the work plan to be undertaken. The summary should indicate what is planned, how and where the work will be carried out, a schedule of major milestones, and when the final product (such as a final report) is to be delivered. SECTION 2: BODY OF THE PROPOSAL 2.a PROJECT DESCRIPTION 2.a.i Project Title 2.a.ii Project Application Fully describe the project and the target application(s). Specify the project's objectives. Justify the scope, duration and use of the requested ATM services. 2.a.iii Network Configuration State the physical locations, by street address, where the ATM access is required (locations in the Greater Los Angeles Area). State the access speed (DS3 or OC3c) and the requested service duration (12-24 months). 2.b PROJECT PARTICIPANTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS 2.b.i Project Participants List the direct project participants (companies or institutions). Outline any additional elements of the project which support intra-industry and inter-industry collaboration and cooperation. 2.b.ii Participant Contributions State the contribution of each participant and identify their role in the project. Contribution examples include: funds, in-kind services, equipment, applications, applications development, personnel, or other (non-Pacific Bell) communications service. 2.b.iii Project Components List all major elements of the project (customer premises equipment, computer equipment, software, and personnel). State the estimated cost of the elements, the source of acquisition (donated, purchased, or loaned) and whether the element is contingent on other types of support (such as federal grants). 2.c EXPECTED BENEFITS 2.c.i Expected Benefits Summary State the expected benefits that will be delivered at the conclusion of the project. Describe the project's impact in advancing ATM knowledge and usage. Outline the elements of the project applications that support one or more of CalREN's goals stated in the introduction. 2.c.ii Project Beneficiaries Clearly define the target beneficiaries, their size, needs, and demographic characteristics. Provide documentation supporting the projected beneficiary population. 2.c.iii Dissemination Plan Include a plan for broadly disseminating the results of the proposed activity. Describe the measurement, documentation and distribution procedures to be used. 2.c.iv Final Report State how the project's findings or final report will be made available to the public. Identify who will be the authors of the final report. Intellectual property clearly defined for retention by project participants in the application process may be excluded from publication. SECTION 3: PROJECT LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT PLAN 3.a Qualifications of Project Leader Identify the governing or managing entity with clear responsibility for performance of the project activity. Provide information on the project manager's leadership experience. Include resume or other relevant information on the quality and depth of experience of the project leader in Attachment A. 3.b Qualifications of Project Participants Describe qualifications of project participants and key staff members (supporting documentation can be included in Attachment A). Provide evidence of the effectiveness of the participants in similar kinds of activities, including high performance communication technology and application commercialization. Include any letters of support from other project participants or supporters in Attachment B. 3.c Project Management Plan Indicate what is planned, how and where the work will be carried out, a schedule of milestones, and the final product to be delivered. The methods planned to achieve each objective or task should be discussed explicitly and in detail. The anticipated results of the application if the project is successful should be stated. SECTION 4: ATTACHMENTS TO PROPOSAL (Maximum of 10 pages) A: Resume or qualifications of project participants and key staff members B: Letters of support from other project participants/supporters C: Other supporting materials as appropriate