Hytera and Huawei Respond to FCC Blocking Chinese Equipment as U.S. Players React

WASHINGTON, September 21, 2021 – Hytera, a company with ties to China that has been the subject of a national security blacklist proposal and whose partners have vouched for its innocence, said Monday that its United States radio equipment is being unfairly maligned.

Meanwhile, several key industry trade groups – including the leading wireless industry and consumer technology associations – urged a lighter-touch approach to “compliance challenges” involving Chinese companies, saying that under hardline Federal Communications Commission rules, burdens “may be passed on to consumers.”

But other U.S. advocates aren’t satisfied and want even stricter rules by the FCC to weed out alleged threats in America’s networks.

Hytera says that is has been unfairly targeted by the FCC

Hytera US, a supplier of radio equipment to emergency first responders, said in a submission to the FCC on Monday that it has been unfairly targeted because of confusion over the FCC’s authority in its blacklist, which is a product of Congress’ Secure Networks Act of 2019.

The FCC in March proposed a list of equipment and services from certain vendors from which to revoke or to deny future equipment approvals due to the “unacceptable risk” to the country’s national security. Included in the list is video surveillance and telecommunications equipment from Hytera, as well as equipment and services from Huawei, ZTE, Hangzhou Hikvision, and Dahua. Part of its process is to ask the industry for comments on its proposal.

Hytera said in its submission Monday that its radio equipment does not connect to the internet or otherwise can’t be compromised by a foreign government. And it argued Monday that the FCC only has authority to blacklist certain equipment, not paint whole entities as threats.

Hytera has said that its competitors in the radio equipment space have allegedly been using this narrative to paint it as a risky company to deal with, which has resulted in Hytera dealers suffering “greatly, losing deals, being barred from bidding for projects, being maligned.”

Over the past two weeks, clients and dealers of Hytera, including Diversified Communications Group and Alpha Prime Communications, have criticized the FCC for Hytera’s inclusion on the list.

Hytera asks for clear distinction between radio equipment and broadband

Hytera is recommending the FCC make the distinction clear to the public and to specifically clarify that the blacklist “only includes equipment and services providing broadband service having a connection speed of at least 200 [kilobits per second] in either direction.”

Diversified and Alpha Prime have argued that Hytera radio equipment does not transmit data over the internet and so cannot be a threat under the FCC’s rules.

In a letter accompanying its submission, Hytera US vice president of sales Thomas Wineland said the FCC’s list has “destroyed our dealers’ ability to sell Hytera. Even if they can convince their customers that the two-way radios they plan to buy are not on the Covered List, the customers, in turn, answer to their bosses.

“They tell the dealer they ‘just can’t take the risk’ that the FCC will demand that Hytera equipment be removed and replaced,” he said. “They see Hytera’s name on the Covered List and choose a different manufacturer.

“Certainly this anti-competitive impact in the two-way radio marketplace was not what was contemplated in creating the Covered List,” Wineland continued. “Hytera US is a good citizen in each of its communities. It does not market broadband equipment in the US. A clarification that the Covered List reaches only broadband equipment would give Hytera the ability to neutralize the Covered List’s anti-competitive impact and allow the free market to operate.”

Huawei says FCC hasn’t shown proof its equipment is a threat

In its own submission on Monday, Huawei said the FCC has allegedly shown no evidence of a threat from its equipment, and its decision makes little sense on a cost-benefit analysis.

“The Commission has no evidence that Huawei has violated any of these rules,” the submission said. “Huawei’s equipment has been recognized by independent third parties, world leading carriers, major enterprise and industry customers as being of the highest technical quality. The identity of a manufacturer, by itself, cannot rationally be connected to any of the purposes of the equipment authorization rules.”

Huawei is one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. It supplies equipment all over the world, with part of its allure being its relatively low cost.

“The rules would impose substantial costs on carriers, end-users, distributors, suppliers, and resellers of Huawei equipment,” the company said. “Revoking existing equipment authorizations and prohibiting new ones would require these United States entities to divert limited resources, threaten service quality, and increase the cost of service, without equivalent benefits.”

The company also argued that the FCC is exceeding its authority by proposing to prohibit the “importation, marketing, or sale of a company’s products based on the identity of the manufacturer without regard to the technical characteristics of a particular product.”

On the proposal, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said the commission, “through its current equipment authorization process, continues to approve for use in the U.S. thousands of applications from Huawei and other entities deemed national security threats.

“The FCC has approved more than 3,000 applications from Huawei alone since 2018…We are launching this proceeding with a simple and important goal in mind—to protect America’s communications networks and, in turn, our national security.  The rules we propose are simple: equipment from entities that pose a national security risk will no longer be eligible for FCC approval.”

Industry associations say list could have ‘unintended consequences’

A number of associations that represent the broadband and wireless industries said in a combined submission on Monday that there could be “unintended consequences” with the proposal, including difficulty in implementation, harm to American consumers, and weaker supply chains.

Those groups include the ACT – The App Association, Consumer Technology Association, the Council to Secure the Digital Economy, the USTelecom broadband association, the Internet Association, the Information Technology Industry Council, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the CTIA.

The CTIA said the FCC should consider more tailored approaches, including addressing “compliance challenges” and observe the costs and benefits of the proposed changes, including “burdens that may be passed on to consumers.”

The proposal “extends far beyond national security concerns, contemplating sweeping regulatory oversight of the cybersecurity features of the connected devices and systems that will drive the 5G future and beyond,” the submission added.

“Cybersecurity is best addressed through public-private partnerships and flexible, risk-based solutions, not prescriptive mandates,” it said. “Rather than duplicating the ongoing work of its federal partners, the Commission should support industry-led efforts, promote the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s leadership on voluntary and flexible guidance for [internet of things] security, and look to the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council for input.”

China Tech Threat, Blue Path Labs press FCC for more

China Tech Threat, a research institution that focuses on threats from China, and Blue Path Labs, an organization that studies China and that has clients in the federal government, filed a joint submission Monday recommending the commission broaden the list and said all information technology emanating from China is “vulnerable to that government’s intrusion.”

The submission recommends adding to the list laptop manufacturer Lenovo and memory chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies.

“The FCC has made a good start to propose prohibiting equipment authorizations from 5 Chinese military aligned companies, but there are many more entities operating in the US which pose an unacceptable national security risk,” the submission said.

“The FCC needs to apply these restrictions to all the equipment from vulnerable Chinese government owned and military aligned entities which operate in the U.S. today, as described by the US- China Economic and Security Review Commission, the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List, and the Department of Defense list of Communist Chinese Military Companies (CCMC).”

Co-founder of China Tech Threat, Roslyn Layton, told Broadband Breakfast following Diversified Communications plea that the ban list isn’t about Hytera per se, but what the Communist party in China requires of its companies.