High Frequency Software defined radio systems

Background: The United Nations Field Operations deploy civilian, police and military personnel worldwide, often in areas with ongoing armed conflict and damaged and/or non-existing telecommunications infrastructure. Therefore, the UN typically establish its own information and communication (ICT) infrastructure to provide short, medium and long-range communication to its personnel. To address its communication needs, the UN, among other means, deploys radio equipment to support voice and data communications, mostly in the HF, VHF, and UHF bands. This Request for Information seeks to identify available solutions to the aforementioned communications needs through equipment and services that utilize "software defined radio" (SDR) or similar technology in in the HF and low VHF bands. The UN has a special interest in interoperability/compatibility with HF equipment from other major manufacturers and welcomes information on these solutions this regards. The current UN Standard is CODAN Envoy, so compatibility with this platform is preferred. The purpose to this RFI is to gather information from suppliers on solutions, as mentioned above, but with special attention to addressing the following issues: 1) Compatibility with current equipment. How your product could be integrated into an existing legacy network utilising digital voice, encryption and data communications based on the our current standard (even if a third party’s product is required). 2) Availability of HF products supporting digital voice, data and encryption using open standards that could eventually be multi sourced. 3) If 1 and 2 are not feasible, please define options that could fit the UN requirements and describe a path on how the UN could incorporate those systems in our operations worldwide. 4) The availability of vendors/manufacturers capable of providing end-to-end supply chain and after sales support to the UN global operations including its peace operation. These include remote and onsite support and ability to provide a permanent support presence in places like Somalia. 5) The availability of open source network management systems that are hardware agnostic and therefore compatible with equipment of several manufacturers. This will enable the UN to achieve the best utilization of current and future investments in HF communication systems. 6) Integration with commonly available communications devices like cell phones for messaging, etc. 7) Integration of GPS location information for vehicle tracking purposes. 8) Solutions enabling interoperability with different telecommunications technology such as mobile and fixed telephony, satellite phones/terminals, VHF/UHF two-way radio systems, tactical HF and low band VHF systems. 9) Availability of both commercial and military pattern for the above solutions (with greater emphasis on the commercial versions) 10) Any available information on compliance with international, regional and and/or national standards for the equipment and solutions included in the RFI responses. The information gathered in this RFI will be used for the preparation of a Request for Proposals by end 2020. Participation in this RFI is not required to submit offers for the subsequent RFP.