Rip and Replace Funding Available, FCC Says

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission has in hand the extra $3.08 billion needed to fund its effort to remove blacklisted Chinese gear from rural networks, the agency announced Tuesday.

The FCC said it had made the extra funding available to participants.

“With this further allocation, recipients should be able to move swiftly to fulfill their removal, replacement, and disposal work under the Secure Networks Act and Program rules,” the agency said in a public notice Tuesday.

After consistent pressure from the agency and industry groups, Congress authorized the agency to borrow the money from the Treasury in December as part of a defense policy bill. It's set to be paid back with the proceeds from a one-off spectrum auction the same law authorized.

The FCC’s Rip and Replace program, as it’s called, was set up by a 2021 law to reimburse smaller providers for the cost of swapping equipment from Huawei and ZTE, deemed security threats by lawmakers, out of their networks. But it became clear that the $1.9 billion appropriated for it was not enough to fully repay all 126 participants, leaving them asking for repeated deadline extensions to avoid penalties. 

The agency reports to Congress every 180 days on the program’s progress, with the last report coming on Dec. 30, 2024. That document said more than 70 percent of participants cited the prorated payments as a barrier to completing the work, with half the companies saying they couldn’t get it done at all without more cash.

In recent notices, the agency has been making clear it will be more discerning in granting extensions now that the funding issue is cleared up. As of December, 118 of the 139 total extensions had been granted due to the shortfall. 

“Further extensions will become increasingly unnecessary, and any further requests for extensions will be closely scrutinized to ensure consistency with the Commission’s rules,” the agency wrote in a Feb. 21 notice. 

The most recent extensions were granted the same day, with 13 companies getting an extra three months despite most asking for six. Seven of the companies cited the lack of funding, with others pointing to supply chain and weather-related issues.