Provision of Internet Connectivity Services on a Long-term Agreement Basis

The United Nations (UN) House in Pretoria currently comprises of 11 agencies using independent internet connectivity with different bandwidths allocation. The main purpose of this project is to consolidate internet connectivity for the agencies for better economies of scale and return on investment. All Agencies depend on Internet connectivity to enable access to cloud services and business tools that are hosted in their headquarters mainly New York and Geneva. Reliable internet service is therefore a critical requirement for productivity of staff on 11 UN Agencies in UN House namely UNDP, UNDP Auditors, UNDP Regional HUB, UNFPA, WHO, FAO, UNAIDS, UNIC, OHCHR, UNEP, UNDSS, RCO and UNWOMEN
This request for proposal (RFP) therefore seeks to find a service provider to provide primary Fibre based internet connectivity with 1:1 ratio,100% uptime to the internet to be used for accessing web-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) databases, cloud-based email services, Unified Communication voice and video traffic as well as general internet browsing.
Qualification
? Bidders should be a Tier 1 or Tier 2 service provider, have the expertise and at least ten (10) years’ experience in Internet service provisioning in South Africa. Company overview to be provided, including.
1.1 Physical locations of operation (i.e., headquarters, network operations Centre, data Centre etc.)
1.2 Organizational structure
1.3 Number of employees
1.4 Date the Company began operating
1.5 Other countries they operate in (if applicable) Major clients
? Bidders must have the capacity and ability to provide maintenance services and technical support
? A previous experience providing services to UN Agencies in South Africa is desired.

Purpose and objectives
The main purpose of this RFP is to contract a reliable and efficient internet service provider to be used to connect to the following critical services:
• UN’s ERP databases centrally hosted in headquarters
• Cloud hosted email services that is integrated with Unified Communication Skype for Business and CISCO Jabber used for voice and video traffic
• Video conferencing and Teleconferencing services used to communicate with different UN offices across the globe.

Scope of work
The ISP is expected to perform the following:
Install and configure Customer Premises Equipment
Provide 24/7 Internet connection with a 100 % availability service level agreement
Provide a subnet of 32 Public IP addresses to be shared by all agencies
Provide a bandwidth monitoring tool
Provide Support Contacts
Provide 24/7 customer support services
Provide dedicated Account Manager
Upgrade the system with compatible one for free when UN want to upgrade the bandwidth

Methodology
The ISP needs to specify and document the method that they shall use to provide and maintain the internet connection. That is, but not limited to:
• The type of media for the backhaul (Fibre)
• The type of media and capacity for the last mile (Fibre)
• The type of media for the primary backhauls link and failover option.
• The type and scope of the bandwidth monitoring tool
• Proof of international redundancy
• Proof of an existing 24/7 customer support team