US router ban: Exemption for Netgear – without plans for US production
The US router ban was actually watertight, with extremely high requirements for an exception. Nevertheless, Netgear has now been granted one.
(Image: Hadrian/Shutterstock.com)
The US communications authority FCC has granted Netgear an exemption from the router ban, even though the US manufacturer has its products manufactured in Asia and has not presented any plans to change that. According to the Federal Communications Commission, the Pentagon has granted conditional approval for numerous Netgear products, which is why the release has been granted. This is valid until October 1, 2027. If no further exceptions to the actually complete sales ban are granted, Netgear would de facto have a monopoly on the sale of routers and modems in the United States.
No longer a “security risk”?
Apparently, Netgear did not have to make any of the originally required concessions for the FCC's U-turn; the background is currently still unclear. At the end of March, the FCC unexpectedly declared that it would no longer approve new routers for the consumer market unless they were manufactured in the USA. However, there are no such routers, which is why it was effectively a comprehensive router ban. Already approved router models could still be sold, and existing units continued to be used. However, they were only supposed to receive security updates until March 1, 2027. As a justification, the FCC had claimed that foreign consumer routers posed an “unacceptable risk to national security”.
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Although the FCC had left a backdoor open, possible exemptions were tied to such high requirements that only a few manufacturers would likely undertake them. For example, a separate application was required for each model, demanding extensive documentation. Neither from Netgear nor from the FCC is there now any indication that the US manufacturer has met this requirement. In addition, a “detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States” was demanded. However, there is no such plan publicly available from Netgear, and it is also not mentioned in the mandatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
(mho)
