Section 548.90  Program Specific Definitions

"Assistant Secretary" means the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information or the individual who holds any successor position.

"BEAD NOFO" means the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment ("BEAD") Program Notice of Funding Opportunity posted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to describe the requirements under which it will award grants for the BEAD Program.

"Community Anchor Institution" means an entity such as a school, library, health clinic, health center, hospital or other medical provider, public safety entity, institution of higher education, public housing organization, or community support organization that facilitates greater use of broadband service by vulnerable populations, including, but not limited to, low-income individuals, unemployed individuals, children, the incarcerated, and aged individuals. DCEO may propose to NTIA that additional types of institutions should qualify as CAIs.

"Digital Equity" means the condition in which individuals and communities have the information technology capacity that is needed for full participation in the society and economy of the United States.

"Eligible Community Anchor Institution" means a community anchor institution that lacks access to Gigabit-level broadband service.

"Eligible Subgrantee" means an incorporated business or partnership; a political subdivision; a nonprofit organization; a cooperative association; or a limited liability corporation organized for the purpose of expanding broadband access. Illinois public school districts are eligible to apply but may be encouraged to leverage other available federal or education-specific funding prior to an award.

"Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold" means cost per location above which the DCEO may decline to select a proposal if use of an alternative technology meeting the BEAD Program's technical requirements would be less expensive.

"Location" and "Broadband Serviceable Location" mean a business or residential location in the United States at which fixed broadband internet access service is, or can be, installed.

"Middle Mile Infrastructure" means:

any broadband infrastructure that does not connect directly to an end-user location, including a community anchor institution; and includes:

leased dark fiber, interoffice transport, backhaul, carrier-neutral internet exchange facilities, carrier-neutral submarine cable landing stations, undersea cables, transport connectivity to data centers, special access transport, and other similar services; and

wired or private wireless broadband infrastructure, including microwave capacity, radio tower access, and other services or infrastructure for a private wireless broadband network, such as towers, fiber, and microwave links.

"NTIA-Approved Challenge Process Dataset" means the complete list of locations and community anchor institutions within Illinois that are eligible for BEAD grant funds, indicating whether a particular location is an Unserved or Underserved Location.

"Open Access" refers to an arrangement in which the subgrantee offers nondiscriminatory access to and use of its network on a wholesale basis to other providers seeking to provide broadband service to end-user locations, at just and reasonable wholesale rates for the useful life of the subsidized network assets. For this purpose, "just and reasonable wholesale rates" means rates that include a discount from the provider's retail rates reflecting the costs that the subgrantee avoids by virtue of not providing retail service to the end user location (including, for example, marketing, billing, and collection-related costs).

"Priority Broadband Project" means a project that will provision service via end-to-end fiber-optic facilities to each end-user premises. DCEO may disqualify any project that might otherwise qualify as a priority broadband project from priority broadband project status, with the approval of the Assistant Secretary, on the basis that the location surpasses DCEO's extremely high cost per location threshold, or for other valid reasons subject to approval by the Assistant Secretary.

"Project" means an undertaking by a subgrantee to construct and deploy infrastructure for the provision of broadband service. A "project" may constitute a single unserved or underserved broadband-serviceable location, or a grouping of broadband-serviceable locations in which not less than 80% of broadband-serviceable locations served by the project are unserved locations or underserved locations.

"Program" means the portion of the Connect Illinois Broadband Grant Program applying federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) dollars as a funding source.

"Reliable Broadband Service" means broadband service that the NTIA-approved challenge process dataset shows is accessible to a location via:

fiber-optic technology;

cable modem/hybrid fiber-coaxial technology; or

terrestrial fixed wireless technology utilizing entirely licensed spectrum or using a hybrid of licensed and unlicensed spectrum.

"Underserved Location" means a broadband-serviceable location that is:

not an unserved location; and

that the NTIA-approved challenge process dataset shows as lacking access to reliable broadband service offered with:

a speed of not less than 100 Mbps for downloads;

a speed of not less than 20 Mbps for uploads; and

latency less than or equal to 100 milliseconds.

"Underserved Service Project" means a project in which not less than 80% of broadband-serviceable locations served by the project are unserved locations or underserved locations. An "Underserved Service Project" may be as small as a single underserved broadband-serviceable location.

"Unserved Location" means a broadband-serviceable location that the NTIA-approved challenge process dataset shows as:

having no access to broadband service; or

lacking access to reliable broadband service offered with:

a speed of not less than 25 Mbps for downloads; 

a speed of not less than 3 Mbps for uploads; and

latency less than or equal to 100 milliseconds.

"Unserved Service Project" means a project in which not less than 80% of broadband-serviceable locations served by the project are unserved locations. An "Unserved Service Project" may be as small as a single unserved broadband serviceable location.

(Source:  Amended at 48 Ill. Reg. 17501, effective November 20, 2024)