|
new phone system capable of supporting newer, feature-rich, less expensive
<br />technologies such as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and unified communications.
<br />
<br />In July, 2014, based on responses to a City issued Request For Qualifications (RFQ),
<br />the City executed an Agreement with Communication Strategies (ComStrat), a
<br />telecommunications consulting firm, to assist City staff with a telephone system needs
<br />analysis and the Request For Proposal (RFP) process.
<br />
<br />In March, 2015, the City issued an RFP for a new telephone system, the scope of which
<br />included survivability at each City location (no single failure will bring down all sites),
<br />620 new handsets, a new call accounting system, 27 new switches, E911 (internal
<br />dialing of 911 identifies the location of the caller), programming of the auto-attendants
<br />(phone trees for automated routing of calls), intercom functionality, overhead paging
<br />where it currently exists, full featured unified communications including integration with
<br />Microsoft Outlook™, and five (5) years of premium support.
<br />
<br />Evaluation criteria used to rank the responses consisted of: the initial cost plus five (5)
<br />years of premium support, user group demonstrations for City staff, vendor experience
<br />with local municipalities, ComStrat’s experience with both the vendor and the systems
<br />they were proposing, and the overall functionality of the systems being proposed. The
<br />ranking of the six responses for the new phone system RFP are summarized as follows:
<br />
<br />Rank Bidder Initial Bid Amount
<br />
<br />1. Packet Fusion, San Mateo, CA – ShoreTel system $441,932
<br />2. KIS Consulting, Freemont, CA – Mitel system $470,301
<br />3. Xtelesis Corp, Burlingame, CA – ShoreTel system $580,443
<br />4. Altura Communications, Fullerton, CA – Avaya system $557,883
<br />5. AdvanTel Networks, San Jose, CA – Avaya system $609,454
<br />6. NexusIS, Pleasanton, CA – Cisco system $618,636
<br />
<br />Based on the initial cost as well as the other criteria stated above, Packet Fusion was
<br />ranked as number one. In addition, Information Technology (IT) has successfully
<br />worked with Packet Fusion installing ShoreTel systems at several of our IT clients
<br />including Burlingame, Menlo Park, and Atherton.
<br />
<br />After selecting Packet Fusion as the lowest responsive bidder, staff entered into
<br />negotiations regarding the scope of services and agreement. During this process, with
<br />input from Packet Fusion and ComStrat, IT expanded the scope to include the redesign
<br />of the City’s connectivity to the outside world and inter-facility communications. The
<br />expanded scope will create additional resilience so that multiple paths to the outside
<br />world are available should any single path fail.
<br />
<br />The cost of the equipment, programming, training, and implementation required to
<br />support the base design plus additional scope is $545,417, up from the initial bid of
<br />$441,932. A ten percent (10%) contingency is being added, resulting in a total cost not
<br />6.1.G. - Page 2
|