§ 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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