§ 54.634   Eligible services.

   (a) Eligible services. Subject to the provisions of § § 54.600 through
   54.602 and § § 54.630 through 54.680, eligible health care providers may
   request support from the Healthcare Connect Fund for any advanced
   telecommunications or information service that enables health care
   providers to post their own data, interact with stored data, generate
   new data, or communicate, by providing connectivity over private
   dedicated networks or the public Internet for the provision of health
   information technology.

   (b) Eligibility of dark fiber. A consortium of eligible health care
   providers may receive support for “dark” fiber where the customer, not
   the vendor, provides the modulating electronics, subject to the
   following limitations:

   (1) Support for recurring charges associated with dark fiber is only
   available once the dark fiber is “lit” and actually being used by the
   health care provider. Support for non-recurring charges for dark fiber
   is only available for fiber lit within the same funding year, but
   applicants may receive up to a one-year extension to light fiber if
   they provide documentation to the Administrator that construction was
   unavoidably delayed due to weather or other reasons.

   (2) Requests for proposals (RFPs) that solicit dark fiber solutions
   must also solicit proposals to provide the needed services over lit
   fiber over a time period comparable to the duration of the dark fiber
   lease or indefeasible right of use.

   (3) If an applicant intends to request support for equipment and
   maintenance costs associated with lighting and operating dark fiber, it
   must include such elements in the same RFP as the dark fiber so that
   the Administrator can review all costs associated with the fiber when
   determining whether the applicant chose the most cost-effective bid.

   (c) Dark and lit fiber maintenance costs. (1) Both individual and
   consortium applicants may receive support for recurring maintenance
   costs associated with leases of dark or lit fiber.

   (2) Consortium applicants may receive support for upfront payments for
   maintenance costs associated with leases of dark or lit fiber, subject
   to the limitations in § 54.638.

   (d) Reasonable and customary installation charges. Eligible health care
   providers may obtain support for reasonable and customary installation
   charges for eligible services, up to an undiscounted cost of $5,000 per
   eligible site.

   (e) Upfront charges for vendor deployment of new or upgraded
   facilities. (1) Participants may obtain support for upfront charges for
   vendor deployment of new or upgraded facilities to serve eligible
   sites.

   (2) Support is available to extend vendor deployment of facilities up
   to the “demarcation point,” which is the boundary between facilities
   owned or controlled by the vendor, and facilities owned or controlled
   by the customer.

   [ 78 FR 13986 , Mar. 1, 2013]

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