Routing Confusion, US Now Allowing Foreign Router Updates Until 2029

The Land Of Confusion

The FCC has banned the sale all foreign consumer grade routers, except for the ones they didn’t, banned selling all foreign WiFi hotspots, except for the ones they made an exception for and also banned firmware and software updates for existing products, except now they haven’t.  Oh, and at some point foreign made drones and parts got added to the bans as well.  If you think you are confused, TP-Link have applied for an exception to the ban, but at this point it’s hard to say what they are getting exemption from.

This confusion is likely due to someone having a brilliant idea, getting rid of insecure consumer networking gear, but not asking those knowledgeable enough to point out the stated ban includes every single router on the planet except some made by Starlink .. maybe.  We at PCPer fully support getting rid of hardware with unpatchable vulnerabilities but also realize that is essentially impossible and that preventing anyone from patching dodgy hardware already set up is a bad idea.

The latest change to the router ban is allowing at least some firmware and software updates to networking hardware until 2029.  So, at least for now, the various routers and WiFi hotspots already in the hands of consumers will be able to get security updates as new vulnerabilities are discovered and taken advantage of.   

At least that is as of this post, who knows what the next hour will bring?