§ 54.604   Consortia, telecommunications services, and existing contracts.

   (a) Consortia. (1) Under the Telecommunications Program, an eligible
   health care provider may join a consortium with other eligible health
   care providers; with schools, libraries, and library consortia eligible
   under subpart F of this part; and with public sector (governmental)
   entities to order telecommunications services. With one exception,
   eligible health care providers participating in consortia with
   ineligible private sector members shall not be eligible for supported
   services under this subpart. A consortium may include ineligible
   private sector entities if such consortium is only receiving services
   at tariffed rates or at market rates from those providers who do not
   file tariffs.

   (2) For consortia, universal service support under the
   Telecommunications Program shall apply only to the portion of eligible
   services used by an eligible health care provider.

   (b) Telecommunications Services. Any telecommunications service that is
   the subject of a properly completed bona fide request by a rural health
   care provider shall be eligible for universal service support, subject
   to the limitations described in this paragraph. The length of a
   supported telecommunications service may not exceed the distance
   between the health care provider and the point farthest from that
   provider on the jurisdictional boundary of the largest city in a state
   as defined in § 54.625(a).

   (c) Existing contracts. A signed contract for services eligible for
   Telecommunications Program support pursuant to this subpart between an
   eligible health care provider as defined under § 54.600 and a
   telecommunications carrier shall be exempt from the competitive bid
   requirements set forth in § 54.603(a) as follows:

   (1) A contract signed on or before July 10, 1997 is exempt from the
   competitive bid requirement for the life of the contract.

   (2) [Reserved]

   (d) For rural health care providers that take service under or pursuant
   to a master contract, as defined in § 54.500(f), the date of execution
   of that master contract represents the applicable date for purposes of
   determining whether and to what extent the rural health care provider
   is exempt from the competitive bid requirements.

   (e) The competitive bid system will be deemed to be operational when
   the Administrator is ready to accept and post FCC Form 465 from rural
   health care providers on a website and that website is available for
   use by telecommunications carriers.

   [ 63 FR 2131 , Jan. 13, 1998;  63 FR 33586 , June 19, 1998, as amended at
    63 FR 70572 , Dec. 21, 1998;  64 FR 22810 , Apr. 28, 1999;  71 FR 65750 ,
   Nov. 9, 2006;  78 FR 13983 , Mar. 1, 2013]

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