China Unicom (Americas) Challenges Placement on FCC 'Covered List'

China Unicom (Americas) asked the FCC to reconsider its September decision to add it to the agency’s list of "covered" equipment suppliers -- deemed to present security concerns (see 2209200045). CUA questioned whether it had been given adequate opportunity to respond and said an April 2020 letter asking the company to explain why the FCC shouldn't begin the process of revoking its domestic and international authorizations can’t be used to place it on the covered list. “Two years after receiving a letter that explicitly declined even to recommend any action, including under the Secure Networks Act, and five months after CUA ceased offering services under section 214 of the Communications Act, the [Public Safety] Bureau has concluded that the two-year-old 2020 Letter was a determination that the now-terminated services are currently capable of posing a threat to national security,” CUA said in a filing posted Friday in docket 18-89. “That conclusion is inexplicable,” the company said: “It is contrary to the Secure Networks Act; a non-recommendation presenting unsigned ‘views,’ developed without any process or participation by the affected company, could not have been a determination triggering a Secure Networks Act listing with all its consequences, even at the time it was made, much less two years later.”