Whoops: Congress Failed To Actually Fund Efforts To “Rip And Replace” Chinese Telecom Gear From U.S. Networks

You might recall that the FCC under both Trump and Biden has made a big deal about forcing U.S. telecoms to rip out Huawei gear from their networks, under the allegation that the gear is used to spy on Americans (you're to ignore, of course, that the United States spies on everyone, constantly, and has broadly supported backdooring all manner of sensitive telecom products globally).

The efforts aren't going so hot. U.S. ISPs that began yanking cheaper Chinese gear out of the networks say they're only getting about forty percent of the money they need from the government to actually complete the job, (including destroying the gear so it's not re-used):

Congress last year allocated about $1.9 billion for its Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, widely known in the telecom industry as the rip and replace" program because participants are charged with ripping out Huawei and ZTE equipment and replacing it with trusted" equipment from companies such as Ericsson, Nokia and Mavenir. However, dozens of mostly smaller US network operators participating in the effort believe that far more funding is needed - roughly $3.1 billion more - to finish the job.

While bigger ISPs can eat the costs of completely revamping their networks in this fashion, it's a bigger issue for smaller ISPs already struggling to get by. Only $41 million of this $1.9 billion effort had been doled out as of the beginning of this year, and participants in the program say program administrator's decision to only answer questions via email has slowed things down further.

Add to this COVID-era supply chain and labor issues, and actually doing what the government planned has proven both costly and cumbersome. Michigan Senator Gary Peters and FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks recently penned an editorial begging Congress for the money to complete the job, though this is the same Congress that just let the FCC's spectrum auction authority lapse for no coherent reason.

While getting Chinese-made gear out of U.S. networks isn't a terrible idea, you can see how the U.S. government may not be competent enough to actually walk the talk.

Clearly nobody really planned this rip and replace" effort out well enough to actually fund it. And confirming that ISPs spend money sensibly and ethically also isn't really the FCC's strong suit.

This is of course all being overshadowed by the great TikTok moral panic of 2023, which sucked most of the oxygen policy out of the room, despite the fact that a ban of the social media app wouldn't actually accomplish all that much. FCC Commissioners like Brendan Carr have gotten oodles of cable TV news attention for freaking out about TikTok, yet he's been relatively quiet on this issue he actually regulates.

Meanwhile these expensive, incomplete efforts to combat Chinese surveillance of Americans still can't seemingly convince Congress to actually pass a privacy law or regulate data brokers, something Chinese intelligence easily exploits. So yes, an impressive job all around.