NETWORX recompete has market implications

NS202 "Forbearance Interval" is a Game-Changer!

GSA has released the NS2020 Networks RFI, with a dozen pages of details on what they want for the next generation network-based and network-enabled services.

The stated purpose for the RFI is to inform industry, and provide a channel for industry to inform GSA, about the network strategy that will carry government for another decade and a half.

Quantified Perception has applied the Text Analysis Profiler(TAP), our proprietary analytics, to the RFI’s substantive statement to help make the RFI more accessible.

QPL’s Analysis

The NS2020 RFI is well structured and organized, relatively terse in presenting a broad subject area that certainly will engender a lot more text than the 20 pages of the released document. It is well-written, with a Microsoft-derived Flesch-Kincaid Reading level of 15.3. QPL gives it a 9.1 with our more rigorous Grade Level calculator.

With just under 3500 words after you drop the site table, there are a couple of interesting nuggets in the word and phrase frequency occurrences.

“Voice and data” are not surprisingly the most common substantive 3-word phrase, occurring nine times in the document. “The forbearance interval” occurs nine times, indicating that this concept for restricting awards will be a hard requirement to alter.

The RFI mandates that any domestic offeror must provide fixed price services in at least 50 of the designated CBSA’s (think “cities.”) During the Forbearance Interval (FI), contractors will be limited to bidding on projects by both geographic area and by the services required for a given task order. The RFI does a credible job in explain the concept, but it is likely to raise some discussion between GSA and potential offerors.

I predict that the Forbearance Interval will become a focal point in discussions and comments regarding NS2020. The parameters of the “FI” will have a huge impact on who can bid for specific task orders after award, with large companies in the drivers’ seats. We may see some interesting partnerships, alliances and even mergers of midsize network providers who are focused on the federal space, in order allow them to compete with the Majors.

Phase Analysis

There are several notable four- and five-word phrases repeated in the RFI, including mention of the “FI,” within longer word strings. “Voice and data services” is not surprising with nine mentions, but it is joined by “mandatory” three times and supplemented by “mandatory and optional services” an additional five times

“Mandatory and optional services” repetition reflects the importance of optional offerings to the forbearance interval. “Minimum set” and “minimum mandatory” are used five and six times each, again indicating the importance that the forbearance interval is likely to have on per-solicitation discourse.

“Comments and suggestions” are called for four times in the document, but are not explicitly requested around the forbearance interval, suggesting that there will be some resistance to modifying the language for that.

Other significant phrases include “geographic coverage, “infrastructure solutions”, and “domestic offerors.” Potential bidders should consider how these phrases will translate into requirements in the final RFP and make appropriate comments at this time – while GSA is still in “flexible” mode.

Five-word Phrases	Number of occurrences		ocabulary	Number of occurrences
structure and the forbearance interval	3		mandatory	20
mandatory voice and data services	3		information	20
how effective will the tiered	3		data	18
forbearance interval be in attracting	3		cbsas	16
for mandatory and optional services	3		coverage	16
			minimum	16
Four-word Phrases			agencies	15
voice and data services	9		requirements	15
mandatory and optional services	5		geographic	14
			service	13
Three-word Phrases			optional	12
mandatory and optional	5		strategy	11
tiered offeror structure	4		comments	10
comments and suggestions	4		forbearance	10
			solutions	10
Two-word Phrases			infrastructure	9
optional services	12		network	9
geographic coverage	10		global	8
forbearance interval	9		suggestions	8
data services	9
infrastructure solutions	8
domestic offerors	7
minimum mandatory	6
minimum set	5