{"id":9092,"date":"2026-03-24T19:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/9092\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T19:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:04:13","slug":"fcc-bans-all-new-routers-not-made-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/9092\/","title":{"rendered":"FCC Bans All New Routers Not Made in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) essentially made it illegal to sell consumer grade routers that aren\u2019t made in the U.S. unless they\u2019ve already received FCC authorization. This policy update, \u201cdoes not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized,\u201d an FCC fact sheet<\/a> says.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the move forces the manufacturing of routers to be moved to the U.S. rapidly, particularly since it\u2019s not clear that any consumer routers are currently made in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The FCC\u2019s public notice<\/a> about this new router ban quotes a very dire-sounding \u201cNational Security Determination\u201d at the FCC that was apparently issued on Friday: \u201cRecently, malicious state and non-state sponsored cyber attackers have increasingly leveraged the vulnerabilities in small and home office routers produced abroad to carry out direct attacks against American civilians in their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Security Determination goes on to say that router vulnerabilities have been exploited as part of a series of notorious attacks and hacks, including the 2024 action by the hacker group Salt Typhoon<\/a>. It says the supply chain for routers must be secured so that Americans can make sure we\u2019re not unwittingly providing backdoor access to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.<\/p>\n

This is a much bigger and more consequential ban than the one last year on foreign drones<\/a>, a blow to Shenzhen, China-based consumer drone titan DJI. It\u2019s also worth noting that a 2021 bill signed into law by President Joe Biden called the Secure Equipment Act<\/a> banned the FCC from licensing electronics from companies deemed threats to national security, principally those based in China. The following year, the FCC banned telecom equipment<\/a>\u2014routers very much included\u2014from China-based Huawei and ZTE.<\/p>\n

As noted in the text of the FCC\u2019s announcement, the FCC keeps a list<\/a> of products and services that \u201cpose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons\u201d\u2014frequently called the \u201cCovered List.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Covered List now includes the following item: \u201cRouters produced in a foreign country, except routers which have been granted a Conditional Approval by DoW or DHS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popular consumer routers from brands like TP-Link and Netgear, broadly speaking, are made in Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam<\/a>, according to Wired. According to a CNBC story from last year, the Trump 1.0-era trade war against China shifted much of the electronics supply chain from China to Southeast Asia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The FCC\u2019s notice<\/a> contains some details about how a company can obtain \u201cConditional Approval. It appears to involve disclosing your company\u2019s management structure, and detailing your supply chain, and then\u2014in what is probably the most onerous part to most companies\u2014what your plan is for onshoring manufacturing to the U.S.<\/p>\n

FCC Chief Brendan Carr\u2019s statement on this action reads, \u201cI welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign-produced routers, which were found to pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC\u2019s Covered List.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing President Trump\u2019s leadership,\u201d Carr adds, \u201cthe FCC will continue [to] do our part in making sure that U.S. cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and supply chains are safe and secure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) essentially made it illegal to sell consumer grade routers that aren\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4097,8,9,6677,6703,7],"class_list":["post-9092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-fcc","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-routers","tag-supply-chain","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116285712789816594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}