The Federal Communications Commission on Friday released rules barring new equipment authorizations for communications and video-surveillance products it has determined pose unacceptable national-security risks, closing a regulatory pathway used to bring covered equipment into the U.S. market. The Commission’s November 25 announcement identifies Huawei Technologies, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hikvision and Dahua Technology among the companies affected and says the action implements the Secure Equipment Act of 2021.

The decision is not a blanket confiscation or immediate removal order for every device already in use. It primarily changes the FCC’s equipment-authorization system—the process through which radio-frequency devices are certified or otherwise shown to comply with federal technical rules before marketing and importation. The Commission’s Report and Order, FCC 22-84, adopted November 11 and released Friday, bars authorization of equipment that falls within the agency’s statutory Covered List and imposes an interim freeze while the new rules move toward effectiveness.

The authorization gate becomes a national-security control

Most radio-frequency devices sold in the United States must comply with FCC equipment-authorization requirements. Historically, that system focused heavily on technical issues such as harmful interference and radio-frequency emissions. Congress and the Commission have now turned the same approval mechanism into a national-security control for equipment deemed risky to communications networks and critical infrastructure.

For Huawei and ZTE, the Covered List encompasses telecommunications equipment and video-surveillance equipment produced or provided by the companies, including equipment from subsidiaries and affiliates. For Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua, the statutory coverage is narrower: telecommunications and video-surveillance equipment is covered to the extent it is used for public safety, security of government facilities, physical-security surveillance of critical infrastructure or other national-security purposes. The FCC’s original March 2021 Covered List set out those distinctions.

The new order requires applicants to attest that equipment they seek to authorize is not prohibited covered equipment. It also restricts use of the Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity route by entities on the Covered List and removes exemptions that could otherwise allow certain covered devices to avoid formal authorization. The aim is to prevent prohibited equipment from reaching the U.S. market through alternative compliance pathways after the main certification route has been closed.

Congress required the FCC to stop approving covered devices

The Commission’s action follows the Secure Equipment Act of 2021, signed into law one year ago. The statute directs the FCC to adopt rules under which it will no longer review or approve equipment-authorization applications for radio-frequency devices that pose a national-security risk as defined through the government’s covered-equipment framework. Congress thereby moved the policy from subsidy restrictions toward market-entry restrictions.

The broader legal foundation came from the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019, enacted in March 2020. That law established the Covered List concept and prohibited certain federal subsidies from being used to purchase communications equipment or services posing national-security risks. It also created a reimbursement framework intended to help smaller communications providers remove and replace covered equipment already embedded in their networks.

The distinction between the two statutes matters. The 2019 law focused on trusted networks, federal support and replacement of existing risky equipment. The 2021 law directed the Commission to close the front door for new covered equipment authorizations. Friday’s order is the regulatory step that puts that second mandate into practice.

The five named companies are not treated identically

The FCC’s Covered List is dynamic and can be updated as designated national-security agencies make determinations under the governing statutes. Huawei and ZTE have been designated broadly for telecommunications and surveillance equipment. Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua are listed for specified public-safety, government-facility, critical-infrastructure and national-security uses. That means the legal treatment depends not only on the manufacturer but, for some companies, on the purpose for which equipment is produced and marketed.

FCC 22-84 addresses that complexity by requiring Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua to obtain Commission approval of plans designed to ensure that equipment proposed for non-prohibited purposes is not marketed or sold for covered uses. The Commission is effectively placing the burden on those manufacturers to show how sales controls would separate permitted products from equipment that Congress and national-security agencies have designated as unacceptable risks.

The order also applies to subsidiaries, affiliates and rebranded products in ways intended to prevent a prohibited manufacturer from avoiding the rules simply by changing a label or corporate channel. That reflects a recurring supply-chain challenge: the entity named on a device may not reveal who actually designed or manufactured the underlying communications hardware.

The rule grew out of a 2021 proceeding, not a sudden post-election move

The FCC began the equipment-authorization rulemaking well before this week. In June 2021, it issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on how to prohibit authorization of equipment on the Covered List, whether existing authorizations should be addressed, and how the agency should treat component parts, subsidiaries and related compliance procedures. Congress then enacted the Secure Equipment Act that November, making the central prohibition mandatory.

Friday’s decision resolves the core authorization question but leaves some issues open. The Commission’s accompanying further notice seeks additional comment on component parts and on whether and how to address previously authorized equipment. That is a significant boundary: FCC 22-84 establishes a forward-looking prohibition and interim freeze, while the treatment of preexisting authorizations remains a separate policy question.

The Commission also adopted procedures allowing it to act when equipment authorization was obtained through false statements or when later changes place equipment within the Covered List. Those provisions matter because the security designation process can evolve after a product has entered development or while an application is pending.

The practical impact reaches manufacturers, carriers and the device supply chain

For manufacturers, the immediate consequence is that covered equipment cannot simply proceed through the normal FCC authorization pipeline. For telecommunications providers and government purchasers, the rule reduces the chance that newly authorized covered devices will enter networks after federal policy has already identified their suppliers as security concerns. For testing laboratories and Telecommunications Certification Bodies, the interim freeze changes which applications can be processed now.

The action also illustrates how communications security policy is moving from procurement restrictions toward product regulation. Federal agencies have spent several years limiting government purchases and federally supported use of equipment from designated suppliers. By controlling equipment authorization, the FCC reaches a broader commercial gateway that applies before many devices can legally be marketed in the United States.

The Commission has not established that every device from every Chinese manufacturer is insecure, nor does the order apply to Chinese technology generally. It is tied to specific entities and categories placed on the Covered List through statutory national-security determinations. That narrower construction is important both legally and technically.

What changed this week is the enforcement point. Equipment already identified as a national-security risk will no longer receive routine FCC approval for new market entry, and the agency has frozen covered applications while the permanent rules take effect. After years of “rip-and-replace” policy aimed at equipment already inside networks, the government is now trying to prevent the next generation of covered hardware from entering those networks in the first place.