US FCC Eases Router Ban for Cable ISPs

Endpoint Safety
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Regulation
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Requirements, Rules & Compliance

Waiver Permits Part Swaps for 1 Yr

Greg Sirico •
June 15, 2026    

The U.S. Federal Communications Fee accredited a cable trade lobbying group’s request to grant giant scale web service suppliers with a waiver from Trump administrations’ present ban on foreign-made routers.

The Tuesday order administered by the Workplace of Engineering and Expertise, provides web service suppliers reminiscent of Constitution, Cox Communications, Comcast NBCUniversal and others, a restricted, one-year waiver permitting producers to proceed producing substitute parts in already accredited shopper routers, with out the necessity for recertification.

The NCTA – The Web & Tv Affiliation sought the waiver for member firms after warning about shopper router shortages and doable supply-chain disruptions attributable to a March order to ban foreign-made shopper routers (see: US FCC Targets International Routers in Provide-Chain Crackdown).

The FCC stated it was certain by a discovering that hackers, together with Chinese language nation-state menace actors, have used routers in hacking campaigns. Cybersecurity consultants have criticized the order, noting that router vulnerabilities are primarily a perform of insufficient patching and gear working previous its end-of-life. Producers have scrambled to acquire particular person waivers to proceed promoting foreign-made routers in america. The FCC in Might postponed the cutoff date for already-approved routers to obtain software program and firmware updates to Jan. 1, 2029. Just about all consumer-grade routers are manufactured overseas.

Federal guidelines round networking gear traditionally do not enable producers to vary router parts after FCC certification however the waiver for NCTA members will enable organizations to finish crucial updates with out repeating the method.

The waiver permits members the chance to “substitute substrate supplies and reminiscence modules in its beforehand licensed routers,” permitting fashions in manufacturing to stay in manufacturing.

“We discover that grant of the waiver will serve the general public curiosity by stopping potential disruptions within the availability of broadband for NCTA members’ clients, whereas nonetheless fulfilling the principles’ nationwide safety and public security objective,” wrote the FCC within the newly granted order.