Request for Proposal for Internet connection

Job Description

Request for Proposal

Establishment of Internet connection for ActionAid Sierra Leone.

1. Introduction: 

ActionAid Sierra Leone is a member of the global federation of ActionAid working to achieve social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication. ActionAid was established in Sierra Leone in 1988.

Our work is guided by the Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) and advancing right based alternatives from a feminist perspective and currently our strategic focus areas are: engage the structural causes of violence against women and girls and promote the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work for economic justice; improve public accountability for the provision of responsive basic public services and advance responsive humanitarian action prioritizing women & girl’s safety, participation, leadership in emergency preparedness, response and prevention.

In recent years, the reliability of a strong internet connection has become a crucial element for the efficiency and growth of any organization. ActionAid Sierra Leone’s offices rely heavily on stable internet access to support routine communications, manage daily operations, and ensure efficient data entry into systems like the SUN accounting platform. However, our current Internet Service Provider (ISP) has struggled to meet these demands, significantly impacting our productivity and ability to meet deadlines.

Current Internet Challenges:

The primary challenges we are facing with our current ISP include:

• Consistency of Service Interruptions: Persistent and frequent outages, often lasting from a few hours to an entire day, have become a regular issue. These disruptions severely impact productivity across all levels of the organization, causing delays in routine reporting, communication breakdowns, and missed deadlines.

• Slow Internet Speeds: The internet bandwidth provided is insufficient to meet the demands of multiple departments and regional offices, especially when it comes to data-heavy tasks like file sharing, video conferencing, and accessing cloud-based resources.

2. Background:

The terms of reference aim to provide a framework for full dedicated 24 / 12-hours TCP/IP Internet Service provision for the Action Aid Office in Freetown, Bo & Makeni, the service is expected to be highly stable and reliable, with overall uptime of not less than 99%.

3. Technical Requirements for Internet connection
4. Internet service shall not have additional payment or limitation by (1) traffic amount or (2) time.
5. To connect our office to the provider central connection, the following options are acceptable (indicated in order of preference): Fiber optic/ Radio link.
6. For the connection of the provider central to upstream, the following options are acceptable (indicated in order of preference): Fiber optic/ Radio link.
7. Provide at least 5 static (255.255.255.240 netmask) public IPv4 addresses for internet connectivity, where 3 are available to the ActionAid
8. During the contract duration, the Provider must be able to:

 Upgrade the line in 1Mbps/1Mbps increments; OR, if this is not possible: 

• Provide a secondary IP address set or secondary line with 10Mbps/10Mbps of bandwidth. 

6. Provider must not use Intermediate Proxies and Transparent proxies as they will interfere with ActionAid VPN. 

7. No limitations on traffic/ports; bandwidth capacity should be ensured through direct IP 

Connection; no mandatory proxy servers.

8. Provider must not use Throttling. 

9. Optional QoS support on ingress: Provider can either implement QoS or not. However, in case it does, then the provider should note that the following types of ingress traffic is important for the ACTION AID and must be classified and treated as high priority on the Provider’s network: 

– All Videoconference traffic (H323) which uses following TCP/UDP ports: 

– UDP/1719 

– UDP/2326:2485 

– TCP/1720 

– TCP/5555:5574 

– Video streaming 

– UDP/554 

10. Implements QoS and the traffic listed above WILL have the high priority; (ii) Provider does NOT implement QoS; (iii) Provider implements QoS but the traffic listed above will NOT have high priority. 

11. The Provider must guarantee that the maximum packet loss within their infrastructure does not exceed 1%. Please provide the latest packet loss information taken during peak and off-peak hours as annex to your bid. 

12. In case of incident, the Provider must guarantee initial diagnostics within the first 4 hours. 

13. In case of incident, the Provider must guarantee full resolution within the first 24 hours. 

14. Data confidentiality guarantee: the Provider shall not scan traffic (unless this is done for finding problems in the network for which a prior ActionAid agreement must be obtained). 

15. Service reliability must be ensured. Overall uptime shall not be less than 99%. If this means installation of a fall overline line (e.g., radio or DSL), this must be made part of the bid. 

16. The Provider must be present in the country for at least 2 years. 

17. The Provider must indicate at least three references (please provide names, phone number and e-mails of references) for the provision of similar services in the country. 

18. The Provider must provide a list of its own edge equipment that will be delivered and installed in the Action Aid Office (e.g., router, modem, switch), along with space, environment, and power requirements. 

19. The provided bandwidth must be dedicated (CIR=1:1), but the minimal guaranteed bandwidth should be 10 Mbps for downstream and 10 Mbps for upstream. 

Additional Notes 

• The provider must have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days coverage for 

Technical assistance and/or helpdesk facilities. Under the normal circumstances all problems should be resolved within maximum 24 hours after the notification from Action Aid is received. The provider is also responsible for contacting designated Action Aid IT Person(s) for both scheduled and un-scheduled downtime. 

• Bidders are required to describe what alternate routing or fallback arrangements for 

Continuity of service they have in place (if any), should their primary link(s) to the Internet backbone become non-operational. Alternate routing or fallback arrangements must meet the standards and requirements set out herein. 

• The selected provider must provide a web interface facility for Action Aid to retrieve real time and historical information on network performance, utilization, and usage analysis. 

• The demarcation point of the Internet connection is in the Action Aid Office, at the RJ-45 Ethernet port on the Action Aid firewall with IP Layer 3 termination. 

• Action Aid may wish to visit the vendor’s Network Operations Centre. 

Expressions of interest must be sent both in hard and soft copies. Hard copies must be submitted in a sealed envelope addressed to:

The Procurement Committee

ActionAid Sierra Leone

97C Wilkinson Road – Church Yard 

Freetown.

Both soft and hard copies can be submitted to AASL’s Procurement Committee with email : Procurement.AASL@ActionAidGlobal.onmicrosoft.com

Deadline for submission is 29th November 2024 at 1pm.