§  54.612   Eligible services.

   (a) Eligible services. Subject to the provisions of § § 54.600 through
   54.602 and 54.607 through 54.633, eligible health care providers may
   request support under the Healthcare Connect Fund Program 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 service provider, 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,
   consistent with § 54.626(b), if they provide documentation to the
   Administrator that construction was unavoidably delayed due to weather
   or other reasons.

   (2) Requests for proposals 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 request for proposal 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 § 54.616.

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

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