Does it make sense to do any design work during ROM phase?
Article #2 of the series "Publishing a RFP for DAS". We are trying to short-cut the process; so, does it make sense to do an actual design? It depends on how big is the design.
Designers working on a DAS Design
Short answer is, it's up to you.
If you do ask for a design, provide a sample, small, representative floor plan to all participants.
First off, it will prove that they can do a design :) You can compare the designs between the vendors. You can also ask them to use this as a basis to scale up the ROM budget for the campus.
Good thing here is you are not asking them to design the whole campus for you just to participate in the bid process – that’s not logical and fair; nevertheless, we do see that kind of requests in a lot of bid processes.
Few notes to keep in mind here:
Does this floor plan represent the campus? If the whole campus is an office area, then great, give them a sample office floor-plan. If it’s an educational campus, then give them floor plan that may include few classrooms and the hallway between them.
When you provide this floor-plan, give the wall types – Dry or sheet rock, metal, concrete. Remember that wall types can make a big difference in design.
Keep this area small, yet big enough to a place a few antennas - lets say an area of 40-50K sq. ft. Idea is if you want to scale up, you would want to give big enough area that will need one or two remotes and a few antennas to cover.
If you have a mixed use campus – say a health care campus – then finding a representative sample becomes difficult. Try to make your best judgement – may be you can pick a space that combines a few of the representative areas. For example, you can pick an area that shows patient area, as well as neighboring offices. This will be better than just giving an office area for the healthcare campus.
Despite all of the benefits mentioned above, this step can still be optional - vendors should be able to supply a good ROM budget without this sample design.
With actual design, you are asking for Logical Diagram, floor plan with antennas & devices, cable route, list of materials, propagation plot in the critical frequency – say 2100 MHz.
Is this a lot of work for the vendor? If the area is not too big, say within 40 to 50 K sq. ft. then it adds a few hours. Yes. But it will show vendors level of interest, and some idea of their qualification. Also, this can be used as a basis for scaling up the design for the whole campus. Just to be fair, I am assuming that when you ask for this from the vendor, your organization are serious about the project. Having vendors do unnecessary work can be bad karma J
“One final note... yes, asking for the actual design can have various benefits. But is it absolutely necessary? No. You can still receive a fairly representative ROM figure. The choice is yours.”
Related Articles:
What is the best way to come up with a budget for DAS deployment?
