Link: https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/24/fcc_foreign_routers/

Citing national security fears, America is effectively banning any new consumer-grade network routers made abroad.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has updated its Covered List to include all foreign-made consumer routers, prohibiting the approval of any new models.

For clarification, the FCC says this change does not prevent the import, sale, or use of any existing models that the agency previously authorized.

That Covered List details equipment and services covered by Section 2 of The Secure Networks Act, which, by their inclusion, are deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to US national security.

According to the FCC, this move follows a determination by a "White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body with appropriate national security expertise," in line with President Trump's National Security Strategy that the US must not be dependent on any other country for core components necessary to the nation's defense or economy.

Its determination was that foreign-produced routers introduce a supply chain vulnerability which could disrupt critical infrastructure and national defense, and pose a severe cybersecurity risk that could harm Americans.

Next it's going to be mandatory for US router manufacturers to leave a hardcoded backdoor for feds to use at any arbitrary reason.

for feds to use at any arbitrary reason.

For the safety of the children you mean /s

Oh yes. That's what I meant to say. Silly me.

I wonder how they define "router". Any device with two network interfaces can be made into a router.

Edit: phrasing

FCC and Executive Branch unilaterally try to**

That said, I don't have the money to try to import an unapproved router for personal use and then find/hire lawyers sue when its seized in customs, and am uncertain what arguments could be used in-court to affect this issue beyond for, maybe, myself ending up with a product I honestly don't plan to use, but there has to be a way beyond begging Congress-Critters for some basic crumbs of Illusion-of-Choice-masquerading-as-Consumer-Rights ... right?

I think you actually need 3.
Otherwise there is no real "routing" just "in here, out there" and vice versa.

It's a router if it operates on layer 3. Most WiFi routers only use two interfaces (ISP side and WiFi) and yet they are routers. They also provide a layer 3 firewall.

But several devices can connect to the WiFi side.
Counts as multiple endpoint devices.

Same with Ethernet

I genuinely thought that was already the case

The "routing" can still refer to routing to devices attached via a switch. So no need for a third port to qualify as a router.

If I recollect right they had some backdoor intents for nvidia AI chips.

That's true. I forgot about a down network switch.

32 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act

It is. CALEA has been around for a long time, and it's surprising to me not many people are aware of it

Technically you only need 1 interface when using VLANs. Basically any device with a CPU and NIC can be a router.

Consider what the media feeds the masses, and it becomes far less confusing. Not everyone checks out TechDirt.

Yeah, I think this is less about how secure foreign routers are and more about inserting their own backdoors in citizens hardware for surveillance purposes.

Noooo, FCC, this isn’t a router, it’s just a computer with 6 network interfaces

Afaik, you'd want hardware acceleration for the actual packet routing, or it'll be quite slow/inefficient. So any ASIC for routing packets would be considered a "router".

I wonder if there exists an open router design based on an FPGA platform...

I think it is more the US government saying, "Hey, you can't do that! Only WE can do that!"

Buy a mini-PC and install something like OPNSense, PFSense, or WRT, etc.

Your options for a new router will be Amazon or Google and you will like it. Also it will be 19.99 a month from your ISP. And you have no control or access to any settings in it.

I'm calling it now - Palantir and others of their ilk will be the ones leading this nonsense.

Ding ding ding

Palantir, the copyright assholes

I can name a few more

If you want to spy on everything that all people do, their modems and traffic routers will be step one

Tell that to the poweredge r210 ii in my closet running PFsense with its CPU barely getting touched despite four NICS, two of them 10gbps.

You're thinking of switching hardware.

That being said I might go hit up mikrotik while I still can for switches. Shame cuz I was hoping to wait until they got PoE versions of the CRS310-8G+2S+IN, but I think they wanna get rid of the crusty old stock of CRS112-8P-4S-IN. They made a similiar newer switch but it only runs swos instead of router is which is bunk.

Ubiquiti stuff can still be flashed with openwrt so I'm good on APs I think once my dlink dies, even if it'll be overpriced.

Worst case I just buy em like I do my FPV flight controllers: from Ali Express

My personal solutions regardless of the law or regulations are besides the point.

Make sure it's got two NICs on it

Interesting, yeah I'm not actually well versed, that's why i began with "afaik" hah. My experience with EdgeRouter is that you basically have to enable hw offloading to get the full throughput, and my assumption was that probably all off-the-shelf routers are doing something similar for them to be usable in such a small/cheap/lower-power box.

When you say I might be thinking of "switching hardware", I assume you're referring to "managed switching", and isn't that just routing without any NAT? Like, if your pfsense router has 4 NICs, then it has to do the job of both a router and switch, no? First one, then the other for each packet?

Doing routing/firewall in software is a lot more flexible, and easier to patch when vulnerabilities come out. Especially when software is integral to the routing (looking at you wireguard/openvpn).

Keep in mind those edgerouters look like they have dual core embedded MIPS CPUs.

My dell power edge is a full blown rack-mount server that could run a small plex instance. You could stick a 1060 in this thing and get Witcher 3 to play at a reasonable framerate.

That's what makes up for the lack of dedicated asics.

As for the four NICs they are as follows:

• 1gb - wan (to modem)
• 1gb - config (to config vlan on switch)
• 10gbps - main lan trunk to LAN switch
• 10gbps - trunk line to public server VM host (DMZ'd from rest of lan, each VM has its own vlan/subnet/firewall ruleset)

They don't act as a switch because it handles packets, not frames, allowing/dropping/denying them based on rules set in software.

Man, just when I think I understand home networking...

You would be correct for a switch only, but not a router (serving multiple VLANS and/or hosts via a trunk port connected to a single switch or WAP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunking