FCC Exempts Netgear from Foreign-Made Router Ban for Some Reason
Netgear, the company with—by one estimate—the third-largest router market share, just got incredible news: it’s exempt from the FCC’s ban on foreign-made routers until October of 2027. Why it’s getting this bailout is anyone’s guess.
Last month, the FCC simply banned sales of all new routers not made in America. If a router already had FCC clearance to be sold, sales would continue to be allowed, but new clearances are for U.S.-made routers only, in theory. The text of the FCC’s announcement explains that vulnerabilities in routers have enabled cyberattacks, including Salt Typhoon’s in 2024, so in the interest of locking all backdoors, the router supply chain must be secured completely. In theory, all new routers had to be manufactured domestically, or manufacterers can seek “conditional approval” which involves jumping through new hoops meant to prove their manufacturer had a plan to move to the U.S. According to a report by the Verge, there’s no sign Netgear has done that. Gizmodo couldn’t find one either. For the record, the FCC says one group of routers from one other company, Adtran Inc., earned a similar exemption somehow. By contrast, Netgear’s more expansive version of this exemption covers:
“Netgear, Inc.’s Nighthawk consumer mesh, mobile and standalone routers (R, RAX, RAXE, RS, MK, MR, M and MH series), Orbi consumer mesh, mobile and standalone routers (RBK, RBE, RBR, RBRE, LBR, LBK and CBK series), cable gateways (CAX series) and cable modems (CM series).” This could potentially give Netgear a very wide loophole. It can continue to manufacture routers overseas—like apparently all consumer routers currently do—and bring any new product into the U.S. by putting one of the aforementioned labels on it.
But there’s nothing in Netgear’s announcement of its lucrative exemption about onshoring manufacturing, just a mention of Netgear being “a U.S. founded and headquartered company.” And the section on the Netgear website about manufacturing still just says “We currently manufacture our consumer router products in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, nations that are considered allies by the US Government.” This isn’t the first puzzling move from FCC related to this router ban. Late last month, it added an expiration date for router security updates of March 1, 2027 meant to cover new routers, but written in such a way as to deny security updates to current routers. A think tank called the Technology Policy Institute wrote that “The ban creates the very vulnerability it claims to address.”
Gizmodo reached out to the FCC and Netgear for clarity about why Netgear received this exemption, and specifically what if any reshoring plan it has announced. We will update this article if we hear back.
