Legislation restricts Huawei, ZTE equipment sales in United States
U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law on Thursday the Secure Equipment Act of 2021. The law prevents Huawei, ZTE, and others from selling their equipment in the United States. The Secure Equipment Act builds on the 2020 Secured and Trusted Network Communications Act, which provides almost $2 billion to rural U.S. telcos to “rip and replace” their Huawei and ZTE gear.
“This bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish rules stating that it will no longer review or approve any authorization application for equipment that is on the list of covered communications equipment or services,” reads the summary on Congress’ website.
The FCC maintains a covered list of banned businesses which includes Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hangzhou Hikvision and Dahua. The law gives the FCC one year to implement the changes, and it grandfathers in any authorizations which have already been granted to those businesses before the law’s enactment.
Rip, Replace, and Rejuvenate
The Secure Equipment Act builds on foundational work laid by the previous administration. After repeatedly targeting Huawei and other Chinese firms with sanctions, President Donald Trump signed the Secured and Trusted Network Communications Act into law in March 2020. That law will inject almost $2 billion of federal funds into the hands of small U.S. carriers who apply for the money as part of a “Rip and Replace” program.
The program reimburses small carriers with 10 million or fewer customers for the cost of removal, replacement, and disposal of suspect gear. Carriers must get rid of communications equipment or services in the network “that pose a national security risk,” according to the FCC. In this case, gear, or services provided by Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE that was purchased on or before June 30, 2020.
Congress appropriated $1.9 billion to cover the anticipated costs; the FCC just finished up the details of how it will run in early August. The federal government started accepting applications to the program on October 29. The window for filing reimbursement requests will close at 11:59 PM Eastern Time on January 14, 2022.
Rural carriers haven’t been sitting still waiting for government action — and the federal capital is giving them an opportunity to modernize services to prepare for 5G cloud-nativity.
Union Wireless struck a deal with Nokia over the summer to replace its Huawei gear. The regional operator provides telco services in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. The firms said in statements that Nokia is helping Union Wireless first virtualize its 4G network before it pivots to a 5G future.
Triangle Communications, A rural telco in Montana, will use its Rip and Replace funds to digitize its core network functions into a Virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) in a deal with Mavenir. Triangle’s new cloud-based core network will be hosted using Mavenir’s Webscale Platform. Triangle will also use Mavenir’s Open RAN hardware and software.
