ESMCP invites tenders for £100m air-to-ground contract
13th Dec 2018
The Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) has published an invitation to tender (ITT) for the air-to-ground component of the Emergency Services Network (ESN) service.
The procurement seeks to establish a framework agreement valued at £100 million, that ESMCP and user organisations can use to procure the required goods and services from a single supplier for a period of 10 years, with an option for a five year extension. The notice states that the reason for this long period is that an agreement of four years or less would not be of interest or financially viable for potential suppliers, due in part to the long lifecycle of aircraft and their components. The successful party will be required to provide 66 devices, potentially rising to 103, consisting of an radio and control unit that will enable communication via ESN up to an altitude of 10,000 feet.
The deadline for submission of tenders or requests to participate is 12:00 GMT, March 2019 and the contract is to be awarded by the end of June 2019.
Further details can be found on the tender website here.
Author:
Sam Fenwick, Critical Communications Today