If what you are insinuating is true then shame on the GSA procurement officer
for not doing proper market research and due diligence. It wasn’t like US
Tower was hiding their amateur radio prices. Vendors tend to increase prices
because they have to deal with the Government bureaucracy (paper work, slow
payments, installation access, etc).
73,
Tom - KQ5S
On Jan 7, 2017, 10:05 AM -0600, Don W7WLL <w7wll@arrl.net>, wrote:
> Let’s get some facts on the table re US Tower prices than maybe this thread
> can be closed or taken off-line. Don’t worry about cost pricing, IFB’s and
> all that.
>
> 1. US Tower is considered a Commercial Off The Shelf supplier (COTS) and a
> Small Business (giving it a preference over non-small businesses)
>
> 2. US Tower has a GSA Schedule contract that runs Feb 15. 2015 through Feb 14
> 2020. It appears everything they make or sell is on it.
>
> 3. Prices exclude shipping cost.
>
> 4. TO THE ISSUE - It would appear (a guess on my part but I negotiated such
> contracts for many many years) that US Tower increased its amateur radio and
> other non-government buying prices based on its price disclosures (or maybe
> not in this case) when negotiating its GSA Schedule. I would hazard a guess
> that after the contract was in place the GSA Contracting Officer might have
> found US Towers selling the same items to non-government entities at lower
> prices than under the GSA schedule. I’d further guess that perhaps the prices
> to amateur radio folks had not been disclosed to GSA when negotiating the
> schedule contract (by oversight I’d hope) but other factors could prevail. If
> there was a nondisclosure issue their choice to satisfy the Feds may have
> been to reduce the prices to the government via the GSA Schedule or raise the
> lower prices (to the non-government and amateur radio market). If there was a
> non-disclosure issue there may even have been some nasty penalties involved,
> not least which would be refunding the difference in price for all sales to
> the those eligible to buy through the GSA Schedule contract until the price
> issue was resolved.
>
>
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