A public policy professor at the University of Georgia argues that the FCC's ban on foreign-made SOHO routers is not a genuine cybersecurity measure but rather industrial policy disguised as security. Milton Mueller contends that the ban's logic is flawed: it focuses on geographic assembly origin while ignoring software supply chains, targets new and more secure devices while leaving vulnerable legacy hardware in place, and may actually increase the US attack surface by discouraging upgrades. He notes the ban aligns with Netgear's lobbying interests and compares it to semiconductor export controls and the TikTok ban as examples of competitive protectionism framed as national security.
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