President Biden has signed the Secure Equipment Act (H.R. 3919) into law, which will prohibit the FCC from reviewing or issuing any new equipment licenses from companies on the FCC’s covered equipment list. The FCC is required to adopt rules implementing this prohibition within one year of the bill’s enactment.
The FCC previously adopted rules that required U.S. telecommunications carriers to remove and replace covered equipment purchased with federal funding, but the rules did not apply to equipment purchased with private or non-federal funding. The enactment of this bill closes this loophole so that authorizations are withheld for equipment offered by the companies on the covered list regardless of what type of funds are used to purchase such equipment.
