- The new proposals seek to secure underwater cables against foreign opponents
- This includes a default contract refusal to Chinese companies
- Underwater cables bear 99% of internet traffic
A recent FCC proposal describes the plans of “ unleashing the investment by underwater cable ” in order to “accelerate the construction of the infrastructure of AI” in the United States, while making efforts to “secure cables against foreign opponents, like China”.
If it is adopted, this could mean a range of measures would be implemented to protect the underwater cables, the application of an `presumption of denial ” for candidates for the opponent state for controlled licenses and to establish physical and cybersecurity requirements, as well as to restrict the rental agreements to these organizations.
In addition to this, the report proposes the prohibition of the use of “covered equipment” in the infrastructure of submarine cables – although the report does not give a definition of the term.
Unknown heroes
Sabotage to submarine cables would undoubtedly be catastrophic, not only in the United States, but to almost all parts of the world.
Cables have 99% of all Internet traffic, managing around 10 billions of dollars in daily financial transactions.
Satellite technology, although active, is not yet able to manage the same volume of traffic. Like the president of the FCC, Brendan Carr, described it, the underwater cables are the “unknown heroes of global communications”.
There is a precedent for this type of order, with Huawei and ZTE at the “RIP and Replace” campaigns in 2020 in order to withdraw Chinese technology from the infrastructure of rural operators, as part of a larger effort to exclude Chinese sellers from the American market.
“While the United States is building the data centers and other infrastructures necessary to direct the world in AI and new generation technologies, these cables are more important than ever. At the same time, as President Trump has long recognized: “ Economic security is national security, “said President Carr.
“We have seen infrastructure of submarine cables threatened in recent years by foreign opponents, such as China. We therefore take measures here to keep our underwater cables against the property of foreign opponents, and access as well as cyber and physical threats. ”
