What the FCC router ban means for FOSS

Date:
Thu, 02 Apr 2026 20:21:14 +0000

Description:
Denver Gingerich of the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has published
an article on the impact of the ban on
the sale of all new home routers not made in the United States
issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The SFC, of
course, is the organization
behind the OpenWrt One router . Since software updates to
already-FCC-approved devices do not
require a new FCC approval, it appears the FCC is trying to move
beyond its usual authorization procedures to restrict what
manufacturers are allowed to push to existing routers. However, the
FCC notably does not restrict software changes made by owners of
routers in the U.S. In particular, there is no indication that updates
people make to their own routers, using software they have sourced
themselves, would run afoul of any past or present FCC rule. As a result, we do not believe that this new FCC decision affects
whether and how people can run OpenWrt or other user-selected firmware
updates on routers they have already purchased. Not only is this an
important right in relation to our ownership and control of our own
devices, it also ensures that people can keep their routers secure for
far longer than the manufacturer may choose to provide security
updates, by allowing them to install up-to-date community software
that supports routers for 10, 15, or even more years after their
initial release date, as OpenWrt does for many devices. He also notes that,
as the OpenWrt One is already FCC-approved,
there should be no impact on its availability in the US. The SFC has
asked the FCC for clarification and plans to provide updates when they
receive a reply.

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Link to news story:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1066162/


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