Scope of Work for Design and Installation of Downtown Wireless Mesh Network
Chair Burtner prepared the final draft of the Scope of Work document by April 27th and it was posted on the City's website and at www.fullertontech.com by April 28th. Vendors and wireless service providers were notified of the Scope of Work by e-mail. Companies receiving notification included Verilan, Tropos Networks, BelAir Networks, Firetide, Strix, Mesh Networks, Aiirmesh Wireless, PacketHop, Alvarion, AirFlow Networks, LocustWorld, Vivato, Navini Networks, 5G Wireless, and Vernier Networks. Those companies responding with proposals by the May 12th deadline were: Wireless Hotspot (Firetide/Vernier), CDCE (Tropos), SkyRiver (Tropos), Cheetah Networks (Tropos/BelAir/Mesh Networks), Color Broadband (AireSpace), LocustWorld (LocustWorld), and Elandia (Vivato).
Ranking of Vendor Proposals
Helen Hall had prepared a matrix with which to rank the proposals. Each proposal was ranked on a scale of 1-5 for each of the following attributes: feasibility, experience of company, standard base, scalability, proven technology and cost. Rankings were received from eight of eleven TWG members. Scores were as follows: Wireless Hotspot (187), CDCE (185), LocustWorld (177), SkyRiver (164), Color Broadband (159), Cheetah Networks (118), and Elandia (112). The largest single major difference between the proposals was in the completeness of the proposals. One proposal was simply a collection of papers describing completed deployments, and others did not specify any particular equipment and how it would be deployed within the coverage area. Apparently some vendors found the Statement of Work to be too generalized and others did not have adequate time to respond. None really sought more information before the proposal deadline. Many of the vendor companies are not more than two years old and some apparently have had relatively little experience with the governmental RFP process.
Because five of the vendors that submitted proposals by the deadline were fairly closely ranked, it was decided to invite all five to make presentations to the TWG. Wireless Hotspot and SkyRiver will each be invited to make one-hour presentations on June 3, 2004. Wireless Hotspot will present at 10:00 a.m. and SkyRiver at 11:00 a.m. The other three, Locust World, CDCE, and Color Broadband, will be invited to make similar presentations on June 7, 2004. All participants will be given a set of questions or topics that the TWG would like to have covered during the presentations.
