FCC Moves To Cut Off Huawei, ZTE From Subsidies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: The Federal Communications Commission is moving to place another restraint on the U.S. business of Huawei and ZTE by banning U.S. companies receiving federal subsidies from purchasing the Chinese firms’ equipment (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). FCC Chairman Ajit Pai set the proposal for vote at the agency’s meeting on Nov. 19. It would designate Huawei and ZTE as national security threat and tell U.S. firms not to buy their equipment using money from an $8.5 billion federal fund designed to fund telecommunications service in rural areas. The FCC would also propose further study, and potentially federal funding, for removing and replacing equipment from the companies that has already been installed. Mr. Pai in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday called this existing equipment an “unacceptable risk.”