§ 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]

   return arrow Back to Top