SABEN RFP: TVET Colleges Connection Project (TCCP) – Round II – Closed

The “TVET Colleges Connection Project (TCCP)” is an ICT infrastructure initiative by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) funded through a National Skills Fund (NSF) grant to connect Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College campuses to the South African National Research Network (SANReN). The purpose of this project is to solve bandwidth poverty at South Africa’s TVET Colleges by connecting them to the SANReN, thereby enabling them to contribute to meeting the goals of the developmental state.

The DHET has appointed the South African Broadband Education Network (SABEN) to implement the project.

SABEN is a non-profit company that was formed as a collaboration between the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET) and SANReN, at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), specifically to connect TVET colleges to SANReN. Initially, SABEN assisted colleges to self-fund their connections to the SANReN.

Interested companies with relevant proven capabilities are invited to submit proposals in response to this Request for Proposal Round 2, for the provision of Access Network Circuits Connecting TVET campuses to SANReN as specified in this document.

This SABEN RFP process intends to identify providers to be contracted to (a) connect the identified sites and (b) provide three years of connection service. SABEN will utilise the grant funding to cover the capital expenditures (up-front costs) for the envisaged connections. SABEN will recover the monthly operating costs over the connection service period from the respective TVET Colleges.

Requests for clarification shall NOT be accepted telephonically, please refer to section 15 in the RFP for instructions. SABEN will respond to the request within 3 business days. The clarifications will be made available to all interested parties by a post on this website. Service providers are to strictly adhere to RFP instructions.

The RFP can be accessed at on the SABEN RFP/RFQs page on the SABEN website.

Clarifications, questions and answers for the Round 2 TCCP Connectivity RFP can be found on the RFP Questions and Answers Round 2 page.

The procedure that interested parties need to follow to attend the compulsory briefing session on Wednesday, 20 May 2020: Round 2 Access Connections Compulsory Briefing Session