1. (a)

   1. (1) Each ARC grant project shall have a well-defined planned geographic service area, henceforward the “project footprint”.

   2. (2)

      1. (A) The project footprint shall include the entire territory of the municipality, unincorporated community, or county targeted for service that currently lacks broadband coverage.
      2. (B) It may also include other contiguous areas that help to strengthen the business case for the project.
   3. (3) The project shall include a plan to make broadband service available to all locations in the project footprint, where service is considered available if a location can be connected within thirty (30) days of a request for service being made.

2. (b)

   1. (1)

      1. (A) Project footprints may be defined which extend beyond the boundaries of the municipality, unincorporated community, or county that is applying, and such extended project footprints can expand the range of allowable expenses under the grant.
      2. (B) However, enlarging the project footprint will not:

3. (i) Raise the cap for the grant request; or

   1. (ii) Make the project more competitive for funding.

   2. (2) It is expected that extending project footprints to include anchor clients or areas of consumer density that happen to be located outside the borders of a town or county will sometimes:

      1. (A) Attract paying stakeholders;
      2. (B) Help to make the project financially self-supporting after deployment; and/or
      3. (C) Provide the convenience of making the grant project footprint coincide with the technical project footprint.

   3. (3) Residents of an extended project footprint not resident in the applicant community will enjoy the same rights to broadband coverage as residents of the applicant community.

      1. (c)
   4. (1) If the project footprint corresponds exactly to the legal boundaries of a municipality or county or with the established boundaries of a census designated place, no proposed coverage map shall be submitted with the application.

   5. (2) But maps in KML or ESRI Shapefile format are required as part of the application in the following cases:

      1. (A) For unincorporated communities that are not coextensive with census designated places, maps shall be provided indicating where the boundaries of the unincorporated community are, along with a narrative of less than one thousand (1,000) words describing the character and history of the unincorporated community;
      2. (B) Where a community is partially served with broadband, project organizers may submit maps distinguishing areas that already enjoy broadband coverage currently and where, therefore, the ISP applying for ARC grant funding will not be obligated to provide broadband coverage, from areas where broadband coverage is currently lacking and will be provided by the applicant ISP as a result of the proposed project;
      3. (C) Where a project involves more than one (1) coapplicant ISPs, maps must be provided clearly displaying which ISP will have a service obligation at each point in the project footprint; and
      4. (D) Where project organizers choose to extend the project footprint beyond the borders of the applicant municipality, unincorporated community, or county, maps should be provided that clearly establish the boundaries of the project footprint.

Codification Notes: "ESRI" means Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. "KML" means keyhole markup language.