On average, 85% of the drones state agencies purchased from 2010 to 2022 were made in China, and the typical state devoted 76% of its drone spending to Chinese drones, said a report Thursday by the Foundation for American Innovation. “From 2010 to 2022, states spent at least $5.3 million on Chinese drones, and at least $8.1 million on drones overall” and 66% of spending was on Chinese drones, the report said: “Thirty-two states devoted at least half their drone spending to Chinese drones. In 38 states, the majority of drones used by state agencies are Chinese.” Concerns over Chinese drones surfaced on Capitol Hill (see 2303160048) and at the FCC (see 2110190051). Commissioner Brendan Carr warned that China-based DJI has more than half the U.S. drone market. DJI disputes that it's a threat to U.S. security (see 2205120027). With the DOD, “members of Congress, and the Biden administration all expressing concerns about the use of Chinese drones, there is growing political will to reduce dependence on Chinese drones and improve U.S. cybersecurity,” the foundation said.
Exports to China
ASPEN, Colo. -- The FCC broadband equity, access and deployment program’s spending will have a “huge stimulative effect” on private investments in network infrastructure over the next decade, said New Street Research’s Jonathan Chaplin Tuesday. BEAD will drive a lot of buildout by mobile carriers and wireless ISPs, said Will Adams, T-Mobile vice president-strategic policy and planning, at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. FCC Chief of Staff Narda Jones said robocalls will remain a consumer issue focus for the agency. Panels also discussed online platform content moderation controversies (see 2308220048) and broadband deployment in Mexico and Canada.
ASPEN, Colo. -- House and Senate priorities when they're back in session in September include reauthorizing the FCC's spectrum auction authority, agency oversight and filling FCC and FTC commissioner openings, legislative aides said Monday at Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. Panels and speakers also discussed the inevitability of further media consolidation and social media's effect on political polarization. UScellular CEO Laurent Therivel urged revisiting the decision to allocate the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use. The prospects of AI regulation also were discussed (see 2308210029).
ASPEN, Colorado -- State and federal lawmakers have significant interest in regulating AI, but that may be premature, said industry, government and academic experts Monday at Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. Later, Oren Etzioni, Allen Institute for AI CEO, was critical of what he said was AI alarmism. Speakers also discussed Congress' tech, media and telecom legislative priorities (see 2308210009).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a 2022 FCC decision revoking Pacific Networks’ and its subsidiary ComNet’s authority to offer domestic or international services in the U.S. (see 2203160031). The FCC “revoked these authorizations based on concerns that the carriers posed national-security risks and had proven themselves untrustworthy,” said a Tuesday decision written by Judge Gregory Katsas, in docket 22-1054. “The carriers argue that the FCC’s reasoning was substantively arbitrary and was rendered with inadequate process,” he said: “We reject both contentions.” The U.S. “has grown increasingly concerned about espionage and other threats from Chinese-owned telecommunications companies,” Katsas wrote. He noted Team Telecom weighed in after the FCC ordered Pacific Networks and ComNet to show cause in 2020 why their authorizations shouldn’t be revoked, saying “China’s Ownership” of the companies “raised ‘significant concerns’ that the carriers would be ‘forced to comply with Chinese government requests, including requests for communications intercepts.’” The carriers contend the FCC “unreasonably found a threat to national security,” Katsas said. “But the Commission meticulously explained -- over the span of 62 pages -- how the carriers’ domestic operations threaten national security,” he said. “We cannot second-guess the FCC’s judgment that allowing China to access this information poses a threat to national security,” the court said. The FCC “adequately explained its decision to revoke Pacific Networks’ and ComNet’s authorizations, and it afforded adequate process to the carriers,” Katsas wrote: “We therefore deny the petition for review.” Circuit Judges Harry Edwards and Karen Henderson joined the decision. The judges were on the same panel that upheld the FCC's revocation of China Telecom Americas’ domestic and international authorities last year (see 2111150025).
5G depends on the allocation of additional licensed spectrum, like the 3.1 GHz band that’s the current focus of federal policymakers (see 2308150066), said Oku Solutions CEO David Witkowski during an IEEE webinar Wednesday. Fixed-wireless access has been described as 5G’s first “killer app,” but there will be others, said Witkowski, also co-chair of the Deployment Working Group of the IEEE Future Networks Technical Community.
Chinese tech giant Huawei reported its revenue grew 3% over the same period last year in the first half of 2023 and its profit margin increased despite U.S. and other international sanctions. Andy Purdy, Huawei chief security officer, said in an interview Friday Huawei remains open to better relations with the U.S., and blocking Huawei won’t make the U.S. safer.
Comments are due Sept. 28 on a Treasury Department rule on implementing an executive order meant to combat national security threats posed by technology in China, Hong Kong and Macau, the department said Wednesday. The EO, which President Joe Biden signed Wednesday, addresses U.S. “investments in certain national security technologies and products in countries of concern.” The department has been asked to issue a rule regulating technology related to semiconductors, microelectronics, quantum computing and AI. The EO directs Treasury to ban U.S. citizens from “engaging in certain transactions involving certain technologies and products that pose a particularly acute national security threat” to the U.S. The rules would govern notification requirements for transactions involving certain technologies and products that pose national security threats.
House China Committee leaders pressed FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday for information about the extent to which Chinese equipment manufacturers like Fibocom and Quectel are spying via U.S. IoT-connected devices via connectivity modules. Those “modules have the capacity both to brick the device and to access the data flowing from the device to the web server that runs each device,” House China Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Calif., said in a letter to Rosenworcel. If the Chinese government “can control the module, it may be able to effectively exfiltrate data or shut down the IoT device. This raises particularly grave concerns in the context of critical infrastructure and any type of sensitive data.” The lawmakers specifically cited Fibocom and Quectel because both gearmakers get “extensive state support” from the Chinese government that makes their equipment a surveillance vector. “The FCC has taken important steps to counter the nefarious influence of [Chinese Communist Party]-controlled technology in U.S. telecom networks, including” clamping down on use of gear from Huawei and ZTE on U.S. networks, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi said: “There are still many U.S. and allied firms that compete with” Chinese “cellular IoT module providers -- such that restricting Quectel and Fibocom’s access to the U.S. market would not undermine U.S. telecommunications networks.” Tackling Chinese IoT modules “is a natural next step for the FCC, in consultation with appropriate national security agencies,” the lawmakers said. They asked Rosenworcel to tell them whether the FCC is “able to track the presence” of IoT modules on U.S. networks and whether the commission is considering addressing that equipment as part of its November order (see 2211230065) to prevent the sale of yet-to-be authorized equipment from Chinese companies in the U.S., among other matters.
Hikvision filed a compliance plan with FCC rules and asked for confidential treatment. The China-based company also asked the FCC to approve the plan, in a filing posted Monday in docket 21-232. The compliance plan was redacted in its entirety. The FCC should “withhold indefinitely from any future public inspection and accord confidential treatment to the company-specific, confidential, sensitive business information contained” in the plan, Hikvision said.