Rural Carriers Nervously Await Funding to Ditch Huawei

With only a handful of days to go in 2020’s legislative session, rural telecom carriers are hoping Congress delivers the estimated $1.5 billion needed to remove the gear from China’s Huawei and ZTE still present in the networks of at least a few dozen of them. The Federal Communications Commission has already cut off access to telecom subsidies for small carriers using such equipment, which is deemed a threat to US national security. One likely potential source of this cash: Capitol Hill’s forthcoming package to fund the government beyond Dec. 11. It’s not clear what appropriators will include. Executives at 14 of these small telecom carriers wrote Capitol Hill, warning that failure to provide funding “would devastate many rural areas and exacerbate the digital divide.” In many cases, these carriers may be the only provider serving rural areas. The transition team for President-elect Joe Biden has begun conversations with the telecom industry.