The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday ordered the US units of China Telecom Corp (中國電信), China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd (中國聯通) and China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) to discontinue fixed or mobile broadband Internet operations in the US.
The FCC said it was requiring the Chinese carriers to discontinue services within 60 days of the effective date of the net neutrality order approved on Thursday.
The order also applies to Chinese telecom Pacific Networks Corp (太平洋網路) and its wholly owned subsidiary ComNet (USA) LLC.
Photo: AP
The commission previously had barred the companies from providing telecommunications services and those decisions were upheld by US courts.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel on Thursday said the commission had evidence that Chinese telecoms were providing broadband services in the US.
The FCC cited national security concerns in revoking or denying Chinese companies the right to provide US telecommunications services.
Chinese telecom firms are “subject to exploitation, influence and control by the Chinese government,” the agency said.
The Chinese telecom companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said China Telecom’s Web site shows that the company operates 26 so-called Internet “Points of Presence” (POPs) in the US and offers colocation, broadband, IP transit and data center services.
The FCC cited national security concerns about Chinese access to POPs typically located within data centers.
“They are interconnecting with other networks and have access to important Points of Presence and data centers,” Starks said, urging “a closer look at the threats that adversarial providers pose to our data and data centers.”
The FCC since 2022 has been studying vulnerabilities that it says threaten the security and integrity of the Border Gateway Protocol, central to the Internet’s global routing system.
This is the latest action by Washington to restrict Chinese telecom carriers including on undersea cables handling Internet traffic.
The FCC previously barred approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), ZTE Corp (中興) and other companies saying they pose “an unacceptable risk” to US national security.
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