US Router Ban

This week we talk about modems, WiFi, and kinda sorta bribes.
We also discuss Huawei, government subsidies, and the FCC.
Recommended Book: Replaceable You by Mary Roach
Transcript
Many homes, those with WiFi connections to the internet, have two different devices they use to make that connectivity happen.
The first is a modem, which is what connects directly to your internet service provider, often via an ethernet jack in the wall that connects to a series of cables webbed throughout your city.
The second is a router, which plugs into the modem and then spreads that signal, derived from that network of city-wide cables around your home, either by splitting that single ethernet jack into multiple ethernet jacks, allowing multiple devices to plug into that network, or by creating a wireless signal, WiFi, that multiple devices can connect to wirelessly in the same way. Many routers will have both options, though in most homes and for most modern devices, WiFi tends to be the more common access point because of its convenience, these days.
That WiFi signal, and the connection provided via those additional ethernet ports on the router, create what’s called a Local Area Network of devices, or LAN. This local area network allow these devices—your phone and your laptop, for instance—to connect to each other directly, but its primary role for most people is using that connection to the modem to grant these devices access the wider internet.
In addition to providing that internet access and creating the Local Area Network, connecting devices on that network to each other, routers also usually provide a layer of security to those devices. This can be done via firewalls and with encryption, which is important as unprotected networks can leave the devices plugged into them vulnerable to outside attack. That means if the router is breached or in some other way exploited, a whole company’s worth of computers, or all your local devices at home, could be made part of a botnet, could be held hostage by ransomware, or could be keylogged until you provide login information for your banks or other seemingly secure accounts to whomever broke into that insufficiently protected LAN.
What I’d like to talk about today is a recently announced ban on some types of routers in the US, the reasoning behind this ban, and what might happen next.
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On March 23, 2026, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on the import of all new consumer-grade routers not made in the United States.
This ban does not impact routers that are already on the market and in homes, so if you have one already, you’re fine. And if you’re buying an existing model, that should be fine, too.
It will apply to new routers, though, and the rationale provided by the FCC with the announcement is that imported routers are a “severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt US critical infrastructure.”
They also cited recent, major hacks like Salt Typhoon…