By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it will vote next month to review its oversight of the global network of undersea communications cables that handle nearly all the world’s internet traffic and national security issues.
FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said “over the past two decades, the technology, economics, and security challenges involving these systems have greatly changed, but FCC oversight has not.”
Rosenworcel added the FCC would vote on Nov. 21 to undertake the first major comprehensive review of its submarine cable rules since 2001. The FCC is considering updates to its rules to address the national security impacts of undersea cables that handle more than 95% of international internet traffic.
Last week, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators led by Republican Todd Young and Democrat Chris Murphy called on President Joe Biden’s administration to undertake “a review of existing vulnerabilities to global undersea cable infrastructure, including the threat of sabotage by Russia as well as the growing role of the People’s Republic of China in cable laying and repair.”
The United States for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and potential for espionage.
More than 400 subsea cables form the backbone of the internet, carrying more than 99% of the world’s data traffic.
The senators said ensuring internet traffic security must be a national priority and raised a number of questions including what is the “administration’s overall strategy to guarantee the security of America’s undersea infrastructure and to promote the security of that of our allies and partners?”
Reuters reported last year the State Department and its partners had helped to prevent China from obtaining new subsea contracts in foreign places of U.S. strategic interest, while other U.S. agencies had prevented any cable from directly connecting U.S. territory with mainland China or Hong Kong over Chinese espionage concerns.
Since 2020, U.S. regulators have been instrumental in the cancellation of four cables whose backers had wanted to link the United States with Hong Kong.
In April, the FCC ordered the U.S. units of China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile to discontinue broadband internet operations in the United States.
In June, the FCC advanced a proposal to boost the security of information transmitted across the internet after government agencies said a Chinese carrier misrouted traffic.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Nick Zieminski)
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