The Provision of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) services

• The MPLS Service would provide Corporate and Operational Network Services to locations, throughout the whole of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK.

• The service would carry business critical voice, video and data traffic and operational traffic over the IP protocol.

• The operational traffic would be part of the monitoring and control infrastructure for the ESB power network.

• The service provided must be highly available and reliable and provide mechanisms for quickly upgrading capacity when required.

• The MPLS Service would provide Corporate and Operational Network Services to locations, throughout the whole of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK.

• The service would carry business critical voice, video and data traffic and operational traffic over the IP protocol.

• The operational traffic would be part of the monitoring and control infrastructure for the ESB power network.

• The service provided must be highly available and reliable and provide mechanisms for quickly upgrading capacity when required.

At the date of issuing this PQQ it is envisaged that the Framework will be initially for 3 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years and then a further 2 years, (a potential 7 year framework)

Please refer to the individual instructions for submission

of

bids relevant to each tender issued via the system.

The Provision of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) services

1) It is our intention to use the Irish Government Procurement portal

(www.etenders.gov.ie) for this competition. Access to this Portal is free of

charge. Interested parties must formally register their expression of interest for

this competition on eTenders before they can gain access to the PQQ

documentation. All information relating to and including the pre-qualification

documents, any clarifications and changes will be issued/published via this

portal. The contracting entity will not accept responsibility for information relayed

(or not relayed) via third parties

2) This is the sole call for competition for this service.

3) The contracting entity will not be responsible for any costs, charges or

expenses incurred by candidates or tenderers.

4) Contract award will be subject to the approval of the competent authorities.

5) It will be a condition of award that candidates are tax compliant.

6) If for any reason it is not possible to admit to the framework agreement one or

more of the tenderers invited following the conclusion of this competitive

process, or having awarded a contract under the framework agreement, the

contracting entity reserves the right to invite the next highest scoring tenderer to

join the framework agreement and/or deliver the contract as appropriate to the

circumstances pertaining to the framework.

7) At its absolute discretion, the contracting entity may elect to terminate this

procurement process, the framework agreement or any contract awarded under

the framework agreement at any time.

8) Please note in relation to all documents, that where reference is made to a

particular standard, make, source, process, trademark, type or patent, that this

is not to be regarded as a de facto requirement. In all such cases it should be

understood that such indications are to be treated strictly and solely for

reference purposes only, to which the words "or equivalent" will always be

appended.

9) Without prejudice to the principle of equal treatment, the contracting entity is

not obliged to engage in a clarification process in respect of questionnaires with

missing or incomplete information. Therefore, candidates are advised to ensure

that they return fully completed questionnaires in order to avoid the risk of

elimination from the competition.

10) At Section II.2.9 we have indicated that 5 will be invited to tender, please

note that the contracting entity reserves the right to invite at least 5 subject to

that number qualifying.