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FCC Bans all new routers not made in America

Xebec

Well-known member

FCC Bans All New Routers Not Made in America​

Routers the FCC has already approved can still be sold, but further approvals of foreign-made routers will not be issued.

On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) essentially made it illegal to sell consumer grade routers that aren’t made in the U.S. unless they’ve already received FCC authorization. This policy update, “does not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized,” an FCC fact sheet says.


From the FCC Fact sheet:

What does this mean?

• New devices on the Covered List, such as foreign-made consumer-grade routers, are prohibited from receiving FCC authorization and are therefore prohibited from being
imported for use or sale in the U.S. This update to the Covered List does not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized.

• This action does not affect any previously-purchased consumer-grade routers. Consumers can continue to use any router they have already lawfully purchased or acquired.

• Producers of consumer-grade routers that receive Conditional Approval from DoW or DHS can continue to receive FCC equipment authorizations. Interested applicants are encouraged to submit applications to conditional-approvals@fcc.gov.

...

So even new router models made in Taiwan are affected. I'm curious how .. enforced this will be as consumer and small business routers often have freuqent minor revisions in the PCB or models over time, especially as parts availability changes.
 
According to Gemini, basically, the only brand that manufactures routers in USA is Adtran. Starlink too but their routers are special.

Major Brands and Where They Manufacture:​

  • Netgear: Primarily manufactured in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Taiwan.
  • Cisco: Manufacturing is global, with major facilities in Mexico, China, and a newer large-scale plant in India.
  • Ubiquiti: Manufacturing is centered in Vietnam, India, and China.
  • TP-Link: Headquartered in the U.S. (Irvine, CA) for global operations, but manufacturing takes place in Vietnam, Brazil, and China.

    It looks like we won't have any routers for awhile.
 
This paranoia reminds me of the Bloomberg News fiasco about the Chinese surreptitiously modifying the management processing on SuperMicro servers by adding extra chips to a server management bus, in the latter half of the last decade.


No proof of this tampering, which would have required motherboard redesigns, modified inspections, power supply issues... you name it... was ever published. Those of us familiar with server design thought this was just lunacy, yet it almost killed SuperMicro. Unless they're only worried about firmware issues, I can't believe routers are much different.
 
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This paranoia reminds me of the Bloomberg News fiasco about the Chinese surreptitiously modifying the management processing on SuperMicro servers by adding extra chips to a server management bus, in the latter half of the last decade.


No proof of this tampering, which would have required motherboard redesigns, modified inspections, power supply issues... you name it... was ever published. Those of us familiar with server design thought this was just lunacy, yet it almost killed SuperMicro. Unless they're only worried about firmware issues, I can't believe routers are much different.
The root cause lies in the disposability of CISOs.

If a company is hacked or has a security breach - they're fired immediately, and reputation ruined. So the security chiefs are incentivized to imagine as much as possible and encouraged to secure for everything regardless of how unlikely, or costly.
 
It looks to me not about national security,rather it's all about force manufacturing back to the US. But is it even possible to make every single components needed for a consumer grade router in the US?
 
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