Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr told lawmakers that threats from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are still a major concern in telecom equipment in the United States.
Carr warned members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services during a May 21 hearing that despite work to remove Chinese equipment from U.S. networks, there is still a lot to be done.
The FCC head spoke to the government’s work to complete the Rip and Replace program to remove equipment from companies like Huawei and ZTE, which could be completed within a year, despite funding shortfalls that caused delays.
Rip and Replace
In 2021, at the start of the Rip and Replace program, $1.9 billion was earmarked to repay U.S. telecom carriers to remove and replace network equipment manufactured by the Chinese-based companies. …