- FCC says foreign-made routers no longer allowed
- Your current home router is safe from the ban
- About 60% of US home routers are made in China
After imposing nationwide bans on companies like Huawei and DJI in recent years, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has now imposed an outright ban on new routers that are not made in the United States.
The ruling applies to “consumer routers” that are “produced in foreign countries,” the FCC says, and approval will not be granted to such devices in the future, although those already on sale and in use are safe.
According to the FCC, routers manufactured outside US borders pose both a “supply chain vulnerability” and a “serious cybersecurity risk.” In other words, there are suspicions that problems in the supply of routers could disrupt the US economy and infrastructure, and that they could be used by foreign states to spy on the communications of US citizens.
Article continues below.
It’s part of a broader move by the United States to reduce its dependence on other countries for hardware and software. The FCC statement noted a number of recent cyberattacks, including Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon, that involved foreign-made router technology.
What does this mean for my Wi-Fi network?
Finding a router made in the US isn’t so easy: Many American companies that sell routers to consumers, including Google and Netgear, make their products abroad. PakGazette estimates that about 60% of home routers in the United States are made in China and imported.
Companies will apparently have to change their manufacturing processes or abandon the US market, although they can apply for “conditional approval” from the FCC for new routers. At the moment it is not clear how easy it would be to achieve this.
However, it’s worth emphasizing that nothing will happen to your current router or your home Wi-Fi network, which will continue to function normally. The FCC ban only applies to new products in the future, not routers that have already been approved or put on sale.
It’s possible that US-based router makers will receive more favorable treatment than foreign entities in the future (TP-Link is one of the companies accused of having strong connections to the Chinese government), but it will be a while before we have a full idea of how this decision will play out.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
