US Government Prohibits Import of Foreign-Made Consumer Routers

In December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) implemented a ban on the import of all future drones manufactured abroad, requiring an exemption for any foreign-made units. Now, the FCC has extended this ban to consumer networking equipment, citing significant risks to national security and the safety of U.S. citizens.

If you already own a Wi-Fi or wired router, you can continue using it without issue. Additionally, foreign companies that have received FCC radio authorization for specific products can still import those items. However, since most consumer routers are produced outside the U.S., this new ruling effectively prohibits the import of nearly all future consumer routers. By adding these devices to its Covered List, the FCC has indicated it will no longer authorize their radios, effectively blocking new imports.

Router manufacturers now face two options: A) obtain a “conditional approval” that allows them to continue bringing new products into the U.S. while they work on establishing domestic manufacturing, or B) choose to forgo selling future products in the U.S., similar to the decision made by drone manufacturer DJI.

The FCC justifies these actions with a National Security Determination, asserting that allowing foreign-made routers to dominate the U.S. market poses unacceptable economic, national security, and cybersecurity risks. It also claims that routers produced abroad were involved in significant cyberattacks targeting critical American infrastructure.

The FCC emphasizes the importance of routers for the economy and national defense, stating that reliance on foreign manufacturing is no longer viable. While it’s true that many router vulnerabilities have been exploited by hackers and botnets, the situation is complicated. For instance, during the Volt Typhoon hack, state-sponsored attackers primarily targeted routers from Cisco and Netgear, both designed by U.S. companies, which had ceased providing security updates for discontinued products.

Although the FCC’s Covered List suggests a broad ban on all “routers produced in a foreign country,” it specifically targets “consumer-grade routers” as defined in NIST Internal Report 8425A, which refers to devices intended for residential use and installable by the customer.