FCC Bans Nearly All Wireless Routers Sold in the U.S. |
Technology
FCC Bans Nearly All Wireless Routers Sold in the U.S.
The government says foreign-made routers pose a national security risk, but since basically all routers are made overseas, this amounts to a near-total ban.
Joe Lancaster | 3.25.2026 1:30 PM
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(IMAGO/Francis Joseph Dean/IMAGO/Dean Pictures/Newscom)
This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effectively banned the sale of nearly all wireless routers in the U.S., in yet another example of the government making Americans' consumer decisions for them.
Ninety-six percent of American adults use the internet, and 80 percent of them use wireless routers—devices that transmit a signal throughout your home via radio waves and allow you to get online without plugging into the wall.
In a Monday announcement, the FCC deemed "all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries" potentially unsafe. This followed a national security determination last week, in which members of executive branch agencies concluded that "routers produced in a foreign country, regardless of the nationality of the producer, pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons."
The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 empowered the government "to prevent communications equipment or services that pose a national security risk from entering U.S.........