The FCC forgot hotspots were a thing. They announced a ban on foreign-made consumer routers a month ago and had to update their FAQ to add MiFi devices and cellular home routers after the fact. That's not a minor oversight... it's the whole work-from-anywhere use case.Here's the part that should bother you. The only way to get an exemption is to commit to US-based manufacturing and submit a time-bound plan to get there. Netgear, eero, and Adtran got conditional approval, but it runs out October 1, 2027. There is no domestic consumer router industry to speak of right now. So the FCC has created a countdown clock against a factory floor that doesn't exist yet.A few things worth sitting with:- The Global Electronics Association pointed out that security vulnerabilities show up across products regardless of where they're made. Geography isn't the filter; code quality is.- The Covered List used to apply to specific companies flagged for specific reasons. Extending it to an entire product category means the government can now ban any internet-connected device made abroad by citing national security. Smartphones aren't included yet. "Yet" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.- The Register's headline from last month said it plainly: the country that put backdoors in Cisco routers to spy on the world is now banning foreign routers. I didn't write that. They did. But they're not wrong.If you're in security or IT leadership, watch the October 2027 date. That's when the conditional approvals expire, and if the manufacturing commitments aren't met, the options get ugly fast.https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/24/fcc_does_a_doubletake_adds/#Cybersecurity #FCC #NetworkSecurity #security #privacy #cloud #infosec
