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Huawei's hopeless US situation somehow got worse
- The FCC will no longer approve or review applications from HUAWEI or ZTE.
- It’s unclear if this only applies to network equipment or consumer products as well.
The US trade ban against Huawei has been ongoing for over three years now, barring the company from using Google services, making its own chips, and more. It’s resulted in the company sliding out of the top five players globally, but it looks like things are going to get worse for the manufacturer.
The White House announced that President Joe Biden has signed the Secure Equipment Act, which means that the FCC will “no longer review or approve any authorization application for equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to national security.” HUAWEI, ZTE, and several other Chinese companies were indeed designated as national security risks by the US earlier this year.
FCC commissioner Brendon Carr was quoted as saying by Reuters that the regulatory body has approved over 3,000 applications from HUAWEI since 2018. He added that the new law “will help to ensure that insecure gear from companies like HUAWEI and ZTE can no longer be inserted into America’s communications networks.”
What does this mean for consumer products?
The decision comes a while after the US barred carriers and rural networks from buying HUAWEI and ZTE equipment and from using federal funds to buy this equipment. However, it’s unclear whether this act only applies to network and related equipment or if it means HUAWEI and ZTE’s phones, tablets, computers, and other consumer products will be affected too.
Devices that fail to receive FCC approval aren’t generally allowed to be sold or imported in the US. For example, Amazon’s terms note that all RF-enabled devices for sale on its platform need to be certified accordingly. This means Amazon could theoretically ditch future HUAWEI and ZTE products if approval isn’t forthcoming.
We’ve emailed the FCC’s representatives to find out how this ban affects HUAWEI’s consumer products (if at all) and will update the article accordingly if they get back to us.
Do you think the trade ban against HUAWEI needs to be tightened, loosened, or dropped altogether? Let us know via the poll below.