FCC Yanks China Unicom Connections; Facebook May End a Connection

The FCC alerted China Unicom (Americas) Wednesday that it’s reclaiming three international signaling point codes (ISPCs) held by the company. Two ISPCs (3-194-2 and 3-195-0) haven't been used since May 1, 2020, and the third (3-199-2) since 2009, said an International Bureau letter. The company “simply cannot on its own decide to ‘reserve’ unused ISPCs for possible service that may never be offered and would similarly be considered warehousing of ISPC codes,” the bureau said. The company didn’t comment. Also Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that “due to ongoing concerns from the U.S. government about direct communications links,” a Facebook-led consortium withdrew its bid to build a California-Hong Kong fiber cable to provide internet connection. Facebook didn’t comment.