[IS] OPINIONS
Worried About the Balloon? Consider
Chinese Equipment in Our Wireless Networks
Posted to Technology February 12, 2023 by Michael O’Rielly
Experts
within the U.S. government, the private sector, and academia openly state
China’s government is a real and present threat to the American way of
life. Its Communist leaders have made provocative foreign policy moves and
maintained the legal right to manipulate technology for its own insidious
purposes. Look no further than the recent Chinese government “weather” balloon
that traveled directly across our entire homeland and had to be shot down by a
U.S. fighter jet. Republicans and Democrats alike are furious that the
balloon could collect and possibly transmit to China secret information on
sensitive American military installations and who knows what else. They
should be apoplectic about the Chinese equipment in our wireless networks!
Those
concerns over the balloon are nearly identical to those that led Congress to
identify the threat of Chinese-supplied wireless network equipment in the
past. In that case, certain components made, supplied, and often installed
by Chinese companies within certain U.S. wireless provider networks – mostly in
rural areas and often near military bases – were deemed a threat to national
security given the potential to be used to reveal sensitive information on U.S.
government activities and spy on the American people. Specifically, the
networks–operating unbeknownst to its U.S. wireless providers–could reap
important information, especially from strategic locations, for transfer back
to mainland China. In fact, it is possible this equipment would be used
in tandem with other technologies, such as the nefarious spy balloon, to
function as a transport mechanism for data to reach its intended destination.
Appropriately,
Congress enacted the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act in 2019 to
set forth a process for extracting a broad array of communications equipment,
namely that by Huawei and ZTE, from the networks of select U.S. wireless
companies. Commonly referred to as “Rip and Replace,” the program was
established to make sure that providers with this equipment could make the
changes demanded by the government. Since enactment, however, Congress has
only appropriated less than forty percent of the overall expected costs,
ignoring more than $3 billion in legitimate and verified provider
expenses. In other words, providers can receive just a fraction of the
promised funding but need to complete the whole project. These small
providers who work to expand internet access in rural America are paralyzed.
Most of those carriers do not have the financial ability to self-fund the
rip-and-replace project. And while they wait for the funding, they can’t
upgrade the service of their networks.
On
the outside of the federal government, the general public cannot see the puts
and pulls of which spending bill or funding structure makes the most sense to
fund Rip and Replace. Some program supporters would like to use a portion
of revenues from future spectrum auctions as a funding stream; others believe
that general appropriations would work best; and there are other possibilities
likely to be considered. In all reality, that is best left for current
policymakers to decide. The key is that it be a high enough priority to be
solved quickly and successfully. For decades, policymakers rightly have railed
against federal bureaucrats and Congress, itself, for imposing new dictates on
businesses without enacting the corresponding funding to meet the new
burdens. Unfunded government mandates wreak havoc on American businesses
trying to meet consumer demand and survive the competing pressures of today’s
marketplace. Despite the outrage, this is exactly the situation faced by
many small and medium-sized American wireless providers. While wireless
providers have done their part to implement mandates that they remove wireless
network equipment deemed a U.S. national security danger, Congress has failed
in its commitment to adequately compensate providers for removing and replacing
the troubled equipment. Unless rectified by new congressional funding,
America’s wireless providers are being pushed to the edge of financial ruin, or
possibly worse, remain vulnerable to attack.
After
identifying a very real national security threat from Chinese wireless
equipment, Congress has the obligation to properly fund the unfunded mandate
caused by the Rip and Replace program. To do any less would leave the American
public and our strategic defenses effectively exposed to hundreds of
terrestrial wireless Chinese balloons.
About the Author
Michael O’Rielly
served as a Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission. He’s
currently a visiting fellow at Hudson Institute, senior fellow at the Media
Institute, and president of MPORielly Consulting Inc. He wrote this for
InsideSources.com.
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