FOR SALES AND OPERATIONS SUPPORT SERVICES FOR MIDDLE MILE FIBER OPTIC NETWORK

ERIENET LOCAL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)
FOR SALES AND OPERATIONS SUPPORT
SERVICES FOR MIDDLE MILE FIBER OPTIC
NETWORK
RFP # 2026-02CI
RFP DATE: July 1, 2026
DUE DATE: August 7, 2026
ERIENET LDC
1 SENECA ST., SUITE 2900
BUFFALO, NEW YORK 14203
INQUIRIES AND PROPOSALS SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO:
Courtney Italia: Courtney.Italia@erienet.com
1

1. GENERAL INFORMATION
ErieNet Local Development Corporation, hereinafter referred to as "ErieNet" or "the
Corporation," is seeking proposals for sales and operations support services for a middle mile
fiber optic network for use by Erie County governments, companies, internet service providers,
and other stakeholders on a municipally owned Open Access Network ("OAN") called
ErieNet. ErieNet's operations include the operations and expansion of the middle -mile
broadband fiber optic network in Erie County.
The project is funded by the ErieNet LDC using American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds from Erie
County together with additional funding provided through the New York State
ConnectALL Office Municipal Infrastructure Program. Access to high-speed broadband
internet is a necessity for the County's economy and quality of life. High speed broadband
internet is a prerequisite to educating our children; growing our economy; and providing a
quality of life which attracts and retains citizens. The intent of the ErieNet LDC's efforts
relative to broadband is to:
*Increase access to high-speed fiber broadband internet for all residents of Erie County; and
*Increase competition and quality within the residential and commercial broadband industry.
More information can be found at: www.erienet.com
The intent of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to award a contract to the responsible firm
whose qualifications, and other factors considered, are the most advantageous to ErieNet.
2. REQUIREMENTS
A. Submission instructions:
1. Schedule.
RFP Advertisement July 1, 2026
RFP Questions Due July 24, 2026
RFP Questions Response Due July 31, 2026
RFP Due Date August 7, 2026
Proposals must be submitted no later than 4:00 pm on August 7, 2026.
2. Inquiries. Inquiries concerning this RFP should be sent to:
ErieNet LDC
1 Seneca St., Suite 2900
Buffalo, New York 14203
Courtney.Italia@erienet.com
3. Conditions of Proposal. All costs incurred in the preparation of a proposal
responding to this RFP will be the responsibility of the Offeror and will not be
reimbursed by ErieNet.

4. Instructions to Prospective Contractors/Submission of Proposals
a. All firms wishing to participate in this process must register via email to
Courtney.Italia@erienet.com. All further information and contact from
ErieNet will be sent electronically.
b. Your proposal should be addressed as follows:
ErieNet LDC
1 Seneca St., Suite 2900
Buffalo, New York 14203
Courtney.Italia@erienet.com
Request for Proposal
[TIME] [DATE]
SEALED PROPOSAL for Utility management Services
** Proposals may be emailed Courtney.Italia@erienet.com with subject line reading
"Request for Proposal for Sales and Operations Support Services" Failure to do so may
result in premature disclosure of your proposal. It is the responsibility of the Offeror to
ensure that the proposal is received by ErieNet, by the date and time specified above.
Late proposals will not be considered.
c. Proposals shall be emailed to Courtney.Italia@erienet.com, and are required
to be submitted by 4:00 pm on August 7, 2026. There will not be a public
opening of proposals.
d. Proposers MUST sign the Proposal Certification attached hereto as Schedule
"A". Unsigned proposals will be rejected.
3. RESPONDENTS
1. Right to Reject. ErieNet reserves the right to reject any and all proposals received in
response to this RFP. A contract for the accepted proposal will be drafted based upon
the factors described in this RFP.
2. Small and/or Minority-Owned Businesses. Efforts will be made by ErieNet to utilize
small businesses and women- and/or minority-owned businesses.
3. Notification of Award. It is expected that a decision selecting the successful Firm will
be made within three (3) weeks of the closing date for the receipt of proposals. Upon
conclusion of final negotiations with the successful Offeror, all Offerors submitting
proposals in response to this Request for Proposal will be informed, in writing, of the
name of the successful contractor.
4. No proposal will be accepted from, nor any agreement awarded to any proposer that is
in arrears related to any debt or in default of any obligation owed to the LDC or Erie
County. Additionally, no agreement will be awarded to any proposer that has failed to
satisfactorily perform pursuant to any prior agreement with the LDC or Erie County.

5. ErieNet will only contract with firms that do not discriminate against employees or
applicants for employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, age,
disability, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status or any other status
protected by New York State and Federal laws.
6. ErieNet reserves the right to amend this RFP. ErieNet reserves the right to reject any
or all proposals, or any part thereof, submitted in response to this RFP, and reserves the
right to waive formalities, if such action is deemed to be in the best interest of ErieNet.
ErieNet reserves the right to request additional information from any proposer.
4. PURPOSE
ErieNet is seeking a qualified firm to provide Sales and Operations Support Services to
represent the Corporation. The firm will provide services to the Corporation, its Board and
staff throughout the term of the engagement, which is expected to be for a period of two
(2) years with an option to renew for two (2) one-year terms.
The purpose of this RFP is to obtain meaningful, competitive proposals so the
Corporation may select a firm that best meets its needs and requirements in managing its
day-to-day operations and executing elements of its business plan. As ErieNet transitions
from design and construction to operation of its fiber optic network, it is seeking to build
and maintain a client base, including municipalities and those in the telecommunications,
healthcare, and education industries.
The ideal consultant will have technical knowledge of the requirements for the buildout
of broadband infrastructure, relevant experience creating and executing sales and
marketing plans in the telecommunications industry, and experience providing operations
management services to assist with the day-to-day operations of an organization in the
telecommunications industry.
Prior to submitting a proposal, Offerors, at their own expense, must secure any personnel
and licenses required to perform the scope of work. Proposals should also identify any
other methods or strategies not identified in this RFP, but that the Offeror may deem
necessary to include in their response.
5. SCOPE OF SERVICES
The Consultant shall provide a detailed Work Plan in the Proposal demonstrating
comprehension of the objectives and scope of services to be provided in response to the RFP.
The Work Plan must clearly describe in detail the Consultant's approach to timely performance
of all services required by the RFP and must include the Firm's staff assigned to complete the
services.
Proposers may:

* Respond to all or a portion of the scope of work.
* If proposer is selected to provide a portion of the scope of work, the proposer would
work with other vendors selected by ErieNet to provide the entire scope of work
* Subcontract a portion of the scope of work.
* Partner with a different proposer to divide the scope of work.
* Propose additional work not included below that is relevant to the maintenance,
operation, sales, or development of the network, or the specific business model
proposed by the proposer.
A. SCOPE
1. Operations Management Services - The Consultant will perform the duties typically
performed by a Chief Operating Officer, including, without limitation:
a. The Consultant will assign a designated representative to act as the primary
point of contact for the execution of this scope of services and the general
operations of ErieNet.
b. Creating and overseeing processes and customer interactions;
c. Assisting the Executive Director in budget development, forecasting, and
reporting;
d. Support for filing all federal, state and local regulatory filings including,
without limitation, Public Service Commission (PSC) and Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) filings on ErieNet's behalf, and ErieNet's
annual submissions of USAC (E*RATE and healthcare) and related filings;
e. Developing and executing plans and procedures to achieve annual budget and
sales targets;
f. Making sure customer experiences are positive;
g. Ensuring that installations are completed on time and within budget;
h. Ensuring that ErieNet adheres to Service Level Agreements (SLAs);
i. Executing key strategic initiatives defined by the Executive Director and the
Board;
j. Assisting in the preparation of reports and tariffs;
k. Coordinating with the ErieNet accountant to verify and provide
supporting documentation for invoicing;
l. Interfacing with the PSC as necessary; and
m. Defining and recommending specific tools required for successful
ErieNet operations.
2. Sales and Operations Administration - The sales function is responsible for attaining
ErieNet revenue objectives as established by ErieNet. The Consultant will sell and
support ErieNet in acquiring new and retaining existing customers and to execute
contracts for lease or IRU of ErieNet fiber. The Consultant will:
a. Generate sales and will respond to leads from potential customers, both
enterprise level and carrier-based, via phone calls, mailings, public seminars,
vendor shows and face to face meetings as necessary;
b. Determine customer needs and propose ErieNet-based solutions compliant with
Board directives and policies;
c. Negotiate master and service agreements with customers, subject to ErieNet
approval;
d. Administer customer contracts including creation and modifications as

necessary, subject to ErieNet approval;
e. Provide activity-based reporting, identify and measure key performance
indexes.
f. Assist ErieNet's marketing team as needed.
3. Administration
a. Perform contract maintenance, contract modification, and administer
functions such as notice of completion development and project close-out;
b. Address customer inquiries regarding its invoices; and
c. Perform other duties as necessary.
d. Customer Services Center (CSC) - The Consultant will establish customer
service center with a 24/7 answering service and on-duty engineer to respond
to any maintenance, repair, and/or support issues that may arise on the
condition and operability of the dark fiber infrastructure. A ticket will be
open to document all OSP fiber service calls and will be assigned to the
appropriate ErieNet OSP contractor, Utility, and/or Service Provider
necessary to resolve the ticket. The CSC will create, dispatch, track, resolve,
and report on all tickets on a monthly basis. The ErieNet Executive Director
will be notified of any critical tickets and status of tickets that require
Executive review or decisions.
1. Consultant will administer and manage on behalf of ErieNet, all OSP
contractors, including any initial or renewal procurement bids, RFPs,
and RFQs required for obtaining OSP Fiber (aerial, UG, MR), Udig
and MNS services. OSP contractor(s) will perform the repairs or
maintenance services needed for ErieNet's dark fiber infrastructure,
both aerial and underground. The OSP contractors contract directly
with ErieNet, with the Operations Consultant acting on ErieNet's
behalf to administer and manage the contract.
2. The Consultant will assign a Project Manager to act as Single Point of
Contact for the CSC. Consultant shall have sufficient staff for 24/7 call
answering with a 24/7 on-duty Engineer to respond to critical calls
requiring immediate actions. Non-critical calls will be dispatched next
business day, during regular business hours (M-F, 8am-5pm), with
Consultant assigned staff and ErieNet OSP Contractors.
4. Pre-Sales Design Services - The Consultant's services will include, but not be
limited to:
a. Bring solutions and provide cost estimates and timeframes for sales based
upon client requests;
b. Perform field or desktop surveys as necessary;
c. Determine make ready construction, splicing and building entrance costs;
d. Create preliminary design drawing documents;
e. Prepare cost estimates with make ready and construction time requirements;
and
f. Communicate with ErieNet's Design and Construction Engineering consultant
as necessary to facilitate seamless transition of drawings from preliminary

design to final design package.
5. Fiber Monitoring - The Consultant is responsible to manage and support ErieNet's
Adtran Monitoring system for dark fiber continuity. The Adtran monitoring system
continuously monitors a sample of fiber strands throughout the network. Any
break, disruption of service, or service/signal degradation detected by the system
will generate a ticket to the CSC. The CSC will alert and dispatch the appropriate
resources to resolve the ticket. The CSC may have the monitoring system test
signal strength or create an OTDR Trace to trouble shoot a reported outage or
disruption of service. The OTDR Trace will help the on-duty CSC engineer locate
and diagnose the outage. The CSC will include fiber monitoring reports in the
monthly ErieNet CSC Review Meeting and Reporting.
6. Managed Network Services (MNS) - The Consultant shall administer and manage
the MNS Contractor (Netsync) on ErieNet's behalf. Netsync is responsible for
MNS monitoring, helpdesk, and support services, including coordinating Ciena
HW/SW maintenance and support. ErieNet MNS customers will have authorized
users to contact MNS. ErieNet customers can escalate a Netsync ticket/issue to
ErieNet, where ErieNet's consultant will respond and keep the Executive Director
informed of the ticket/issue and status.
7. OSP Design and Construction Management - Any Lease or IRU agreements
executed will include the OSP Design & Construction Management services
necessary to design, engineer, coordinate utility MR, and construction inspection
and management services necessary to build any OSP infrastructure required by the
lease or IRU agreement.
8. Fiber Asset Management - ErieNet requires Fiber Asset Management along its
350+ mile fiber optic infrastructure. A complex matrix of fiber optic strands and
splicing connections needs to be assigned and reassigned as customers are added,
removed, and relocated. It is critical to maintain detailed records of the current state
of ErieNet's fiber assets.
a. Provide an ESRI GIS compliant database application for the management
of moves, adds, and changes to the network infrastructure as well as
managing the assignment and provisioning of fiber strands.
b. Create and/or maintain processes, procedures, and practices for:
- Administration & Reporting
- Repairs, Maintenance and Support Services
- Fiber Optic Monitoring
- Fiber Optic Diagnosis, Maintenance & Support Ticketing, Dispatch and
Resolution
- Design & Construction Management Services
Fiber Optic Infrastructure Design & Cost Estimating
o
Regulatory permit administration (Federal, State, Local &
o
Railroad), including management of PE Firms under ENLDC
contract
Utility Coordination - Make Ready Survey, Design &
o
Construction, including management of Utility Design and

Construction ENLDC Contractors
Management of ENLDC Fiber Optic Construction & Repair
o
Contractors, including Fiber Splicing & Testing
- Other processes as necessary for efficient management.
c. Maintain safety and warranty requirements.
d. Maintain documentation via GIS software tool of the entire network platform,
including the following components, and working with ErieNet to determine GIS
data exchange processes:
- Construction As-Builts
Photo records
o
Splice records
o
Test results (OTDR)
o
- Customer records (IRUs, Leases)
Project files (adds, moves, changes)
o
Cost Estimates
o
e. Maintain documentation of maintenance actions:
- ErieNet repair and maintenance tickets
- Emergency outages documentation that includes: failure type; mean
time to respond (MTR); mean time to repair (MTTR); restoration detail;
restoration costs; trouble ticket detail and relevant reports
- Preventative maintenance documentation that should include:
schedules; drive logs; trouble ticket detail; actions; parts; costs; reports
- Maintain documentation of current maps of network:
f. Maintain documentation via GIS software tool of the entire network
platform, including the following components, and working with ErieNet to
determine GIS data exchange processes:
- User friendly documentation of current maps that include Esri GIS
based; Google Earth version; CAD Version (.dwg) and/or PDF
compatible version
- As-built annotations with splice points, pole points, span lengths, route
miles, OTDR measurements; and access points (if different from splice
points)
g. Maintain documentation of fiber asset inventory:
- Fiber counts (categories) including the assigned matrix; by customer
name; what is open for assignment; and any suspect/bad fibers
- Location and type of splice cases/enclosures
- Location and type of hangers
- Location and type of storage, slack or splice bracket
- Location and type of fiber cable, including date in service
- Spares documentation should include physical location, date of
purchase, lifecycle warning tag, and the bench stock with the dollar
value and physical location.
h. Compile and maintain periodic management reports as requested by ErieNet,
such as:
- Fiber Utilization analysis (allocated fiber miles/unallocated fiber miles)
- Variety of fiber map requests
- Listing of 'on-net' and 'near-net' businesses
- Other reports as requested

i. Reporting Requirements - The Consultant will be expected to keep ErieNet, its Board,
and Executive Director generally apprised as to the status of the Consultant's actions
and its management of ErieNet assets. This may include, but not be limited to:
1. Submission of monthly reports to the Executive
Director disclosing all activities, including sales
activity, complaints, outages, repair times, and other
reports as determined by the Executive Director.
2. Notify Executive Director of any subcontractor's
failure to timely or accurately perform its duties; and
3. Perform other duties as assigned or deemed necessary by the Executive
Director.
6. GENERAL PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS
A. Experience of Firm/Project Team
Firms responding to this RFP should include an organizational chart, identifying the
project manager and team members, with their titles.
B. Experience, Depth and Breadth of Personnel
The project team should have a full range of relevant industry expertise. Primary
personnel in each of the noted disciplines must be identified by name and office
location, with resumes included, and should demonstrate satisfactory experience in
the past 10 years and depth in each of the required disciplines. This should also
include identifying the firm's role within any project and the year(s) in which the
work took place.
C. Approach and Methodology
Respondents to this RFP should include a brief narrative explaining their approach. The
narrative should outline the products and tasks to be provided in response to the
recommended Scope of Work outlined above.
D. Fee Proposal
All proposals must contain a scope of services delineated, inclusive of all expenses
(there will be no reimbursable). Proposals must include a cost breakdown per Schedule
A - Proposer Certification, Fee Proposal Pricing Table, as well as an Hourly Personnel
Rate Schedule.
E. Hourly Personnel Rates
As a supplement, a schedule of billable rates for all key personnel (e.g., Project
Manager, primary personnel for each category, etc.) must be included in the proposal.

7. PROCUREMENT EVALUATION & SELECTION PROCESS
This contract will be awarded in accordance with the Competitive Proposal
procurement methods per ErieNet's Procurement Policy. The intent of this RFP is to
award a contract to the responsible firms that qualifications and other factors
considered are most advantageous to ErieNet, based on the opinion of ErieNet's Board
members. Only ErieNet is in the position to determine its own best interest; therefore,
ErieNet shall be the sole and final judge in determining the quality and appropriateness
of candidates.
All suppliers and vendors should understand that ErieNet is committed to an open, fair,
and transparent selection process. All RFP submissions will be reviewed, objectively
scored, and ranked. Short listed companies may be interviewed prior to
recommendation for selection.
The following criteria, not necessarily listed in order of importance, will be used to
review the proposals. ErieNet reserves the right to weigh its evaluation criteria in any
manner it deems appropriate:
a) Proposer's demonstrated capability to provide services.
b) Proposer's experience to perform the proposed services.
c) Proposer's commitment to including Certified Minority and Women Owned
Business Enterprises (MBE/WBE) in their teams in order to meet Erie County's
goals of 15% MBE, 5% WBE and 5% SDVOB participation. Certified
MBE/WBE/SDVOB proposers should include the Erie County certification
letter with the proposal.
d) Proposer's financial ability to provide the services.
e) Evaluation of the proposer's cost proposal and unit pricing. It should be noted
that while price is not the only consideration, it is an important one.
f) A determination that the proposer has submitted a complete and responsive
proposal as required by this RFP.
g) An evaluation of the proposer's submit product specifications and supporting
information meets the RFP technical specifications and delivery schedule.
h) The proposer's presentation at and the overall results of any interview
conducted with the proposer.
i) Proposers must be concise as possible with their responses.
ErieNet may develop a short list of proposals, and interviews/presentations may be
required. Scoring and ranking will include the following factors:
A. VALUE (30%)
1. Fee Proposal
2. Hourly Personnel Rate Schedule
B. PERFORMANCE (40%)
1. Completeness and compliance with the RFP documents, including all required
submittal information and proposal forms.
2. References with contact information for projects of similar scope and solution
completed within last 3 years
3. Ability to meet or exceed specifications