[11292] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Sprints vBNS Protest One mans Opinion (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph W. Stroup)
Mon Mar 28 11:46:00 1994
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:30:09 -0800 (PST)
From: "Joseph W. Stroup" <nettech@crl.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Joseph Stroup
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 16:41:36 -0800 (PST)
>From: Joseph W. Stroup <nettech@crl.crl.com>
To: "Joseph W. Stroup" <nettech@crl.com>
Cc: "Joseph W. Stroup" <nettech@crl.com>
Subject: Sprints vBNS Protest One mans Opinion
I have completed reading the Sprint protest over the NSF Pre-Award
Announcement in favor of MCI.
Sprints protest was filed Feb. 28, 1994 with the General Accounting
Office to the Attention of Robert P. Murphy. Mr. Murphy is acting General
Counsel at this time. The protest is market to the attention of the
"Procurement Law Control Group".
Simply titled "PROTEST COMPLAINT" the company Sprint Communications
Company, L.P. "Sprint", "PROTESTS" the award of the very high-speed
backbone network services or vBNS to MCI.
Before I start to tear this thing apart let me say something thats very
important. When you file a protest against an award or when you file a
response to a bid, (Example: Sol. 93-52 and Sprints filing) you have to
make sure that your language is correct, all the figures are correct and
that everything has been checked for errors and omissions. Otherwise you
bid and or protest can be thrown out or "kicked" as we call it. You don't
file some poor response and expect to be allowed to ammend it later, you
don't file un-solicitated proposals after a bid closing date and expect
them to be treated with the same impact as the rest of the bids. Ok, so
we all sort of get the idea.
Now In the first paragraph of the Sprint protest they state the following...
"Sprint protests the intention to award etc ". This is a Pre-Award
protest. Its one of the hardest things to do. One of the lowest level
things that can be filed.
Sprint claims that the GAO has jurisdiction by means of various CFR
clauses etc etc again on and on....
The first thing Sprint complains about is that the contract is going to
be a cooperative agreement and not a contract. Then they cite cases to
defend their point. Sprint claims that the entire thing should be a
contract and in their case citations they talk about B227084.3,4, 87-2CPD
590 (1987) and more. Cases that are involving the Shippin business of all
things. Not telecommunications but, shipping. Anyone feel free to help me
along here but, I did not find one citation to a telecommunications
contract or agreement. Not one ! Big mistake.
Timeliness: I love this one. Sprint claims that the protest is in fact
timely because it was filed within 10 days of the award and its the
earliest that Sprint learned of any basis for the protest.
Timeliness is NOT even a factor here. I draw my conclusions when ALL the
facts are in. That could be a year from now. Thats why there are
pre-award, and post award protests.
Facts: Sprint in this section claims that after questions submitted by
potential offerors were answered by the NSF the sol. was NEVER formally
amended. ( Ans Sprint only just now learned of this ? )
Facts: Subsequent to the NSF announcement of its intent to make the award
to MCI, numerous allegations began surfacing on Com-Priv. These
allegations contributed to Sprint's concerns regarding the instant
Solicitation and the conduct of the vBNS procurement. Information
obtained on the public Internet indicates that NSF was holding talks with
MCI during the eval. process. And that no talks were held with Sprint.
Again, Sprint goes on to state in their FACTS that info. on the Internet
indicates that MCI proposed an ATM solution for the vBNS. And that MCI
has not publicly announced an ATM capability. Sprint on the otherhand is
the industry leader in ATM technology and the ONLY IXC with a
commercially-available ATM network.
My Reply here: Not so. AT&T has ATM service available and so does WilTel.
But, this is proposed as a cooperative agreement, MCI could just as
easily go out and buy ATM technology - off-the-shelf from another vendor.
Like say Northern Telecom a long time MCI supplier ! Bong - Not AT&T MCI.
Continuing on....Grounds for Protest
This whole document is flawed. Basicly Sprint took items posted on
Com_priv by myself and Gordon Cook and half baked read them , then put
this protest together. This whole protest is so poorly written that I
would fire the lawyer that did it. Its not the least bit professional and
taints the entire "Protest Process" for the rest of us.
In section VII. Sprint claims that the NSF Board was Impaired in its
eval. by a conflict of Interest.
Get this people: Sprint states "According to Internet subscribers, a
member of the board od directors of ANS, MCI's Business partner and
subcontractor on this procurement was also a member of the National
Science Board !
Hey Steve did you fall off your chair laughing when you read that ? I
mean what fool makes a statement like this and FAILS to check it out ?
Bottom Line: Sprint's PROTEST of Feb 28, 1994 is flawed. Based on
incorrect facts, ammended or NOT , the protest under the CFR Rules should
be "Kicked". Now, this is the last thing that I wanted to see. I also
read a posting on Dave Farbers list by a person who stated a few are
trying to hold this entire vBNS thing up. That is NOT so. There are many
who feel that this whole thing is a "put up job" but, if its done in a
legal fashion, then done is done. The filing of a protest based on
un-verified com-priv posting was about the biggest error I have seen in
two years. Who is this lawyer they have on staff ? She must handle real
estate law or shipping law but, NOT telecommunications law. Thats for sure.
Anyway the GAO can very clearly dismiss this protest with NO problem.
Sprint's
options are to protest again after the award is made and or go into
United States Federal Court and get real serious about this. I guess we
will see.
I can only conclude at this point that MCI is the clear pre-award winner
until such further actions are taken by interested parties.
I will have comments on the MCI protest against Sprint at another time.
>From the keyboard -----
Joseph Stroup
