PUC hearings reopen in Oxford, Intrado appeal
Two bidders for a state emergency communications contract are continuing their complaint to the state's Public Utilities Commission, which awarded the contract to a higher bidder and the current contract holder, Fairpoint Communications, in January.
The Bangor Daily News reported that the Lewiston-based Oxford Networks and Intrado, based in Longmont, Colo., were given another chance to make their case about the 911-call system contract during a three-day hearing in Augusta that began Wednesday.
The two companies are now making their second appeal that the PUC unfairly awarded the contract to Fairpoint. In response to an initial appeal, a state panel invalidated the PUC's contract award process and ordered the agency to conduct a second bid review, which took nine bidders into consideration and awarded the contract to Fairpoint a second time.
Fairpoint bid $32.4 million for the project, higher than Oxford's $24.9-million bid and Intrado's $27.8-million bid.
Part of Intrado's complaint, the BDN reported, is that the PUC should have reissued a bid for the contract rather than re-scoring the original proposals.
Oxford contests that its application was inappropriately thrown out by the agency for not providing sufficient cost information.
The contract calls for the state's current 911 call system to be upgraded to the web-based "NextGen 9-1-1" system that allows better location tracking for messages coming by phone, text message and systems like OnStar.
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