Item — HN Reader

If you take qualcomm (tplink and netgear use this for example), only standards development and frontier RF r&d happen mostly in the US. Most of the RFIC, RTL+firmware+software is mostly from their GCCs in India. Fab in TSMC. Assembly in China.

So what's the plan here.

2 comments

The plan? Government control through "conditional approval" process and making it more costly to own a router than rent one from a consumer internet provider.

But....your ISP also has to procure a router from somewhere. Or are they just going to slap a sticker that says "verizon" on it and say it was made in the USA now?

They'll get a special government exemption, in return for accepting additional voluntary government oversight or some other under the table favour system.

That's why there's a "conditional approval" process attached to this rule.

this is basically saying "you cant do anything unless i allow you to (and i might for a price)" in contrast to when government should just say "these are the things that you cant do, anything else is ok".

To do with electronics what they do with cars, raise the barrier to entry to give domestic manufacturers an edge. Except with routers there is no inherently US category of device with tax loopholes carved out like there is with cars; i.e. big-ass trucks and SUVs.

The cynical side of me expects that approval for sale in the US will require some kind of surveillance back door as well.