US FCC Grants Netgear Temporary Exemption from Router Ban

Endpoint Security , Regulation , Standards, Regulations & Compliance US FCC Grants Netgear Temporary Exemption from Router Ban Critics Call Foreign-Made Router Ban 'Industrial Policy Disguised As Cybersecurity' Greg Sirico • April 15, 2026     Share Post Share Credit Eligible Get Permission Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock Netgear obtained a temporary waiver from the Federal Communications Commission allowing it to continue importing consumer routers through most of 2027, making the networking hardware giant the first consumer brand to circumvent a ban on foreign-made hardware. The waiver comes only a month after the FCC instituted a ban on foreign-made consumer routers, citing national security concerns (see: US FCC Targets Foreign Routers in Supply-Chain Crackdown). A review by the Department of Defense found gear from U.S.-headquartered Netgear does not "pose risks to U.S. national security." The firm manufactures its routers mainly in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan. The FCC orderdoesn't offer much in the way of insight on the government's exemption decision. The exemption lasts until Oct. 1, 2027 and covers mesh, mobile and standalone routers. The exemption only covers current Netgear product lines, potentially stalling any plans the company has for future imports of foreign-made hardware. According to the FCC, Netgear is still required to undergo the commission's standard equipment authorization process to vet each device. In a statement, Netgear said that an exemption can give consumers "peace of mind." Alongside Netgear, Defense also conceded an exemption for U.S.-based networking company Adtran, which specializes in optical fiber and enterprise-scale networking gear. What's in store for Netgear once its 18-month conditional period is over and whether additional approval is required, is unclear. "Virtually no consumer router sold in the United States is manufactured domestically," industry association Global Electronics Association said in a Friday report. The association has criticized the ban, calling router vulnerabilities primarily a function of inadequate patching and equipment operating past its end-of-life - flaws that aren't correlated to where the manufacturer is located. The FCC exemption process, it also said, tees up a problem for manufacturers since the exemptions, called conditional approvals, only last 18 months. "No major router manufacturer operates a U.S. production line, and the full ecosystem for building consumer networking equipment is concentrated in Asia." Reversing that state of affairs in a year-and-a-half would have "no precedent in consumer electronics." An existing buffer of already-approved routers will grant manufacturers some relief, it said, but unless the FCC is able to approve a larger volume of exemptions over the next six months to a year, " consumers and ISPs will face constrained selection and delayed access to next generation products at precisely the moment Wi-Fi 7 adoption should be accelerating." Wi-Fi 7 is the newest standard and promises data rates up to 30 gigabits per second, a number significantly higher than Wi-Fi 6. The industry association hasn't been alone in criticizing the ban. "Does this whole thing make any sense? It does it, you see the FCC’s ban as an exercise in industrial policy disguised as cybersecurity," wrote Milton Mueller, a University of Georgia professor who studies internet governance. "The digital economy is global," he wrote shortly after the ban went into effect. "A router 'Made in the USA' likely runs a Linux kernel maintained by global contributors, uses Wi-Fi drivers written in Taiwan, and incorporates open-source libraries managed by developers worldwide."