If, in the future, a time comes when you’re looking to purchase a new router for your home, your options might become limited and more expensive. On Monday, the United States government announced that it was banning the import of all new foreign-made consumer routers.
The announcement came via an update to the FCC’s list of technology that it feels could threaten national security.
The FCC says that the change comes following a “determination by a White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise that such routers, ‘pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons’.”
The United States claims that routers produced outside the country—which, if you didn’t know, is almost all of them—create a “supply chain vulnerability” that could disrupt the US economy and national defense. The FCC also states that the routers, which have been sold and used without issue for decades, come with a “severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely
disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure and directly harm U.S. persons.”
Routers currently being used in the home are still perfectly fine to use, apparently. Existing models and those currently approved for importing also remain eligible to be purchased off store shelves and online.
This new order blocks the import and sale of routers that haven’t been approved by the United States government. Speaking of approval, the FCC says that companies can apply for “conditional approval” to sell their devices in the country.
According to Reuters, at least one company, TP-Link Systems, plans to fight this order.
What do you think of the FCC putting foreign-made consumer routers on a new banned devices list? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and in this official Insider Gaming Discord.
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Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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