The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) exempted Nokia and others from its blanket router ban.

Router lines from Nokia, Netgear, Adtran, Eero, and Calix were given conditional approval this week from the government agency. Nokia, whose Beacons and Optical Network Terminal (ONT) Beacons were given the all-clear, celebrated the news with a blog reminding readers it wares were deployed by service providers across North America to "deliver high-performance broadband to millions of subscribers."

Nokia saw its Wi-Fi 8 Router exempted earlier in the month.

"Over the past several years, Nokia has invested significantly to support U.S. broadband expansion," Sandy Motley, president of Nokia's Fixed Networks business, wrote. "This FCC conditional approval, combined with our commitment to manufacture Wi-Fi 8 gateways in the U.S., ensures our customers can continue deploying our products without disruption while investing with confidence in future network evolution."

Other routers given the FCC nod included Adtran’s SDG class routers, and Nighthawk and Orbi cable gateways, and cable modems from Netgear, which became the first router vendor to receive a reprieve back in April.

Contradicting accusations from rival TP-Link, NetGear has stopped sourcing internet-connected components from Chinese manufacturers or entities owned or controlled by China.

It all boils down to Salt Typhoon

The FCC’s sweeping router security rules, which were announced in March, were taken as a means to tackle what it described as “unacceptable risks to national security” from nations such as China by citing cybersecurity attacks likes the China-associated Salt Typhoon incidents. The agency warned foreign-made routers could be exploited to “attack American households” and facilitate network espionage and disruptions.

The move saw foreign-produced routers from the likes of Huawei and ZTE added to what’s known as the "Covered List," a catalogue of communications equipment and services. Only foreign-made routers that receive conditional approval from either the Department of Defense (DoD) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are suitable for import.

The move saw backlash from The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which said in a regulatory filing that the scope ambiguity of ruling was fueling industry headaches, with it asking the FCC to clarify exactly which products were outlawed by the ban.

The CTA also asked the the agency to extend the waiver that lets manufacturers push security patches to already-authorized devices beyond the current one-year limit imposed by the body. The group argued that failure to do so would leave devices unpatched and thus vulnerable to bad actors, including those associated with enemy states.

The FCC subsequently extended the deadline, while also closing a potential loophole that could have allowed entities on the Covered List to provide domestic interstate telecom services.

Mauricio Sanchez, senior director at Dell'Oro Group, told this title that while the original action was broad, it was not a blanket exemption for all federal purchases.

"The FCC added foreign-produced consumer-grade routers to the covered list, which blocks new equipment authorizations unless a producer receives conditional approval from the DoD or DHS," Sanchez said, further explaining that previously authorized models can continue to be sold, imported, and used, while conditional approvals provide selected vendors with a path to continue bringing covered products into the U.S. market for a defined period.

"The policy logic is understandable: routers are persistent, privileged devices at critical network edges, and the government is trying to reduce supply-chain and firmware-update risk," Sanchez said. "The practical challenge is that the consumer-router supply chain is heavily offshore, including for many U.S.-branded products. A maximalist interpretation would have been disruptive quickly, which is why we are seeing the back-and-forth now: the security objective is hardline, but implementation still needs to leave enough oxygen for the market to function."