Jarrod Pantier COO
OHIO GIG 8964 Little Mountain Rd Mentor Ohio
FIBER OPTIC CABLE INSTALLATION AND
CONSTRUCTION SERVICES FOR OHIO GIG RURAL
COMMUNINTIES
Request for Proposal
RFP-OSP05192021
To provide construction services for Ohio Gigs rural fiber communities
Responses are due in electronic format by 4:00 pm EST on June 16, 2021
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CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Project Overview ............................................................................................................................... 2
2.0 Scope of Work ................................................................................................................................. 2
2.1 OSP Construction ........................................................................................................................ 3
Underground and Buried Construction ............................................................................................ 3
Aerial Construction .............................................................................................................................. 3
Splicing and testing of fiber ................................................................................................................ 4
2.2 Work Units ..................................................................................................................................... 4
2.3 Reporting requirements ............................................................................................................. 5
3.0 Timeline ........................................................................................................................................ 6
4.0 RFP Instructions ............................................................................................................................ 6
Attachment 1: Belmont and Warren County Builds ........................................................................ 8
Attachment 2: Construction Typicals Vault Placements ................................................................ 9
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
OHIO GIG is building an advanced Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) network in Rural Ohio.
OHIO GIG is committed to providing outstanding products and services to our valued customers by utilizing industry best practices, by setting and attaining high quality standards, and through continual improvement of our business processes. OHIO GIG’s implementation of and adherence to a full-service Quality Assurance Plan will facilitate success in meeting the expectations and requirements resulting in a network that will be low maintenance, efficient operations, and future planning for the next 40+ years. OHIO GIG enables the utilization of detailed policies and procedures, enabling our managers, employees, and contractors to establish and adhere to performance measurement systems designed to meet and exceed our customer’s service requirements, Industry standards, requirements, and expectations.
OHIO GIG places a high value on and takes pride in the quality of workmanship and processes. This approach provides an orderly, methodical framework in which steps are taken to guarantee that all network components are accomplished on time and in conformance with client and industry standards within the allocated resources, and with the customer satisfaction always in mind. This will be to the mutual benefit of OHIO GIG AND OUR Gig COMMUNITIES – by limiting rework impacting project success, and thereby increasing productivity and overall project profitability.
1.1 PROJECT OVERVIEW
Ohio Gig is soliciting proposals for construction partners to assist with the construction of a fiber-to-the-Premise deployment in Belmont and Warren County Ohio. The proposed system will serve more than 70,000 households with broadband communications and contains over 2,500 miles of underground mainline fiber placement. Ohio Gig will deploy a new Central Office/Data center in both counties and remote cabinets for the more rural areas. The network will consist of placing backbone fiber for connectivity to these CO locations and remote cabinet locations. Distribution fiber will be placed from these CO locations into the rural areas feeding local convergence points (LCP) cabinets where splitters will be placed for the GPON system. From the LCP cabinets access fibers will be placed to the curb of all potential subscribers in each serving point. There will be approximately 150 LCP cabinets placed in these builds. Please see enclosed map of the overview of these 2 counties in Attachment 1.
2.0 SCOPE OF WORK
This RFP is specifically looking for Outside Plant (OSP) Fiber Construction Contractors that have experience deploying and implementing the right of way construction for the broadband network. Ohio Gig is wanting to hire local contractors who can self-perform the work and willing to hire local resources for the execution of the work
Contractors will not be allowed to sub-contract any work to other contractors without written approval from Ohio Gig.
All contractors selected for work on the OHIO Gig fiber network will be required to use an online production management system. Work will be issued through this online system along with
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construction maps and access will be given for read only permission to Ohio Gig’s online engineering and mapping systems.
The online production system will require all contractors to report production daily using the online system. A tablet with an operating system of android version 9.0 or higher will be required for the purpose of the daily reporting and access to the production management system.
This will allow for faster inspection and approval of constructed units and ultimately will provide the record for units that can be invoiced. Each company selected will be given a single login credentials to the mapping service and each crew foreman or supervisor for each crew will be given a log in for the production management system. The project manager for each contractor will be given administrative rights to issue work to each of their crews or who is performing work on that section of the fiber network.
2.1 OSP CONSTRUCTION
Ohio Gig will manage and oversee all aspects of the buried fiber network construction required to complete the OSP GPON network detailed within the detailed engineering. This includes the conduit infrastructure required for buried fiber placement, OSP splitter cabinet placement (LCP), vault and handhole installation, splice closure installation and testing as detailed in the OSP construction drawing packages.
UNDERGROUND AND BURIED CONSTRUCTION
• Utility Locates are required by state and is the contractor’s responsibility to call OUPS prior to any excavation being performed
• Traffic control will be required anytime construction in the right of way is impeding traffic and will follow state traffic control guidelines
• Potholing will be required and provided by contractor performing the work to verify existing marked utility as appropriate
• Directional bore, trench or plow as appropriate or as detailed engineering describes
• Install conduit, inner duct and fiber as designed and in accordance with approved permit
• Adequate and appropriate restoration applied • Setting of cabinets, vaults, handholes as designed • Grounding as required
AERIAL CONSTRUCTION
• Placement of fiber optic cable on utility poles with all necessary guying and grounding as required by NESC
• Perform make ready construction to facilitate new attachment(s) of proposed fiber optic cable
• Supporting hardware attached and applied • Cable rearrangements
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SPLICING AND TESTING OF FIBER
• Preparation of splice closures and proper management of fiber optic cables
• Splicing of fiber by approved and appropriate methods • OTDR, power meter and light source as required
2.2 WORK UNITS
The detailed engineering and construction drawings will have a complete list of work units needed to facilitate the build of the underground fiber network. Below is a list of units that will associated with the build.
UNDERGROUND CONSTRUCTION UNITS
• Installation of 2-inch riser to facilitate fiber optic cables making the transition from aerial to underground or installation of riser includes placing the sweep
• Placement of fiber optic cable in underground conduit includes slack/storage.
• Installation of ground rod and bonding knuckle for tracer wire to be able to locate underground fiber optic cable.
• Using a direction drill or pneumatic boring methodologies to place up to 2 conduits (1 ¼ and/or 2 inch) at 24-inch minimum cover, includes all soft surface restoration.
• Using an excavator or backhoe to trench a 12-inch path at a minimum of 24 inches of cover for placement of up to 2 conduits (1 ¼ and/or 2 inch) includes all soft surface restoration.
• Using a plow to place up to 2 conduits (1 ¼ and/or 2 inch) at 24-inch minimum cover, includes all soft surface restoration.
• Conduit adder when more than 2 conduits are designed down any underground routes.
• Installation of tracer wire for use when locating underground path and fiber optic cable
• These small vaults are typically used as pull or assist points when pulling fiber optic cable. Vault will be installed according to manufactures specifications and will placed flush with the ground. All vaults come with a different tier rating and will be chosen by where they are placed in the right of way. The following tier ratings will be installed, Standard – pedestrian traffic, Tier 15 – accidental traffic, Tier 22 – traffic rated vault,
• These medium vaults are typically used for small transition splice points or splice closures for customer access points where 96 count fibers or less are spliced. Vault will be installed according to manufactures specifications and will placed flush with the ground. All vaults come with a different tier rating and will be chosen by where they are placed in the right of way. The following tier ratings will be installed, Standard – pedestrian traffic, Tier 15 – accidental traffic, Tier 22 – traffic rated vault,
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• These large vaults are typically used for large transition points for splice closures where 96 or more fibers will be spliced. Vault will be installed according to manufactures specifications and will placed flush with the ground. All vaults come with a different tier rating and will be chosen by where they are placed in the right of way. The following tier ratings will be installed, Standard – pedestrian traffic, Tier 15 – accidental traffic, Tier 22 – traffic rated vault.
• Placement of LCP cabinet on large vault for termination of access level fibers.
• Hard surface restoration when asphalt or concrete need to be replaced due to installation or vaults during construction activities
• When rock is encountered during boring and trenching. Rock will be determined on production quantity.
AERIAL CONSTRUCTION UNITS
• Raising or lowering of communication attachment to facilitate new proposed attachment with normal access using a bucket truck
• Placement of aerial strand and attachments on poles including pole hardware and any grounding required
• Placement of new anchor and down guy to support new strand of fiber optic cable that has been placed.
SPLICING AND TESTING UNITS
• Preparation of small splice closure, used for splicing multiport tails to access cable (48 splices or less).
• Preparation of medium sized splice closure, used for splicing multiport tails to access cables and small transition splicing (less than 96 fiber to splice).
• Preparation of a large splice closure used for large transition splicing (more than 96 fibers to splice).
• Preparation of fiber cables into the LCP cabinet, along with the buffer tubes and fibers into the splice trays.
• Preparation of fiber cables into a rack mount fiber termination panel. • Fusion splicing for up to 48 fibers per location. • Fusion splicing for 49 to 144 fibers per location. • Fusion splicing for 145 to 432 fibers per location • Splice a ribbon of fiber (12). • Perform an OTDR unidirectionally on fiber strand specifically looking for splice
loss
2.3 REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
Ohio Gig will be using an online reporting system for production reporting. Any contractor chosen to work for Ohio Gig will be required to use Ohio Gigs production reporting software for reporting purposes. Each contractor will be required to give the name and email address of each crew foreman who will be performing the work. Each time a labor task is completed on any specific task, same day reporting of labor units is required. These units will go through an
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inspection process and units without error will be added to an invoiceable unit list. This completed unit list will be used in generating invoiceable units that will be submitted weekly from approved units.
3.0 TIMELINE
The schedule of activities for OSP construction activities is a 5-year timeline where a percentage of work is expected to be completed each year. Today work is tentatively scheduled to break ground and start construction activities in Late July 2021. Currently the OSP work is scheduled as follows:
• Year 1 12.5% of work • Year 2 25% • Year 3 25% • Year 4 25% • Year 5 12.5%
4.0 RFP INSTRUCTIONS
4.1 RFP Modifications – Ohio Gig reserves the right to modify or change information presented in this RFP. Any RFP modification will be provided to all potential bidders by email.
4.2 Responsibility of Costs The bidder shall be responsible for all costs associated with the creation and submission of their proposal
4.3 Intent to Respond In Order to be considered for the project, the bidder shall send an email stating their company name and their intent to provide a proposal to the following address within 7 days of the issue date of this RFP: [email protected]
4.4 Questions related to the RFP All inquiries and requests for information must be submitted by email by June 3, 2021 to: [email protected] Questions received after the deadline will not be considered. Questions received, and their corresponding answers will be delivered to all potential candidates no later than June 8, 2021.
4.5 Proposal Submission Proposals must be received no later than 4:00pm EST June 16, 2021. Proposals shall be delivered in PDF format and pricing should be delivered using excel format via email to the following address: [email protected]
4.6 Schedule of Activities Issue RFP May 19, 2021 Notification of Bidder Intent to Respond May 28, 2021 RFP Questions Due June 3, 2021 Responses to Questions Issued June 8, 2021 Proposals Due June 16, 2021 Contract Execution June 28, 2021 Commence Project Construction July 19, 2021
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4.7 Proposal Requirements RFP format – The bidder’s proposal shall consist of the following standard response format. At a minimum, all bidders are required to include the following sections in their proposals.
Company Information Scope of work responses showing ability to perform work described Timeline of when crews can be available, and any ramp needed to get to
full production Quality control currently in place at company Bidder references Proposal Pricing Additional Information
4.8 Proposal Pricing The bidder shall provide pricing for each work item shown in the scope of work and shall provide that pricing in the attached excel spreadsheet. If Assumptions or additional information is needed for each work unit, please describe, or provide additional information, as necessary. Ohio Gig reserves the right to award only portions of the scope of work to the successful bidder(s).
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ATTACHMENT 1: BELMONT AND WARREN COUNTY BUILDS
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ATTACHMENT 2: CONSTRUCTION TYPICALS VAULT PLACEMENTS
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Plow and trench typical in soft surface
