Photo: VCG

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it may bar three major Chinese telecom companies from connecting to US networks, in the name of preventing so-called robocalls, according to a Reuters report on Monday. Chinese observers warned that the move could bring enormous inconveniences to normal phone calls between people of the two countries, and result in a significant increase in call latency, a sharp surge in communication costs, and a large number of calls failing to connect. This in turn could inflict severe damage to normal economic and business activities between China and the US, they warned. 

According to the Reuters report, if the FCC removes the three Chinese telecoms,China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, it would require all intermediate providers and voice service providers handling calls in the US to cease accepting all calls directly from the Chinese telecoms. The FCC issued orders saying the three Chinese companies must address issues with their certifications in the agency's robocall mitigation database, and raised concerns about their presence in the database. 

Xiang Ligang, a veteran Chinese technology analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the FCC's threat to remove Chinese telecom operators from the US network means that direct Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) routes between China and the US carried by three Chinese telecoms will be severed.

"And once implemented, any calls originating in China to the US or from the US to China that previously used these carriers' direct, shortest, cheapest, and most stable paths will no longer be able to do so. Instead, traffic will be forced to reroute through third-country operators or alternative carriers, resulting in inconveniences such as call latency, hefty cost and in some cases failing to connect," Xiang said.

"An interruption in telecommunications between China and the US would severely damage normal business cooperation, technical exchanges, and people-to-people communication," Xiang stressed. He in particular took note of the massive presence of US companies operating in China, such as Apple and Tesla, stressing that cross-border supply-chain communication is highly dependent on stable and reliable telecommunication networks, and thus, the potential bar could have a severe consequence on those companies' operation.

Photo: VCG

The Reuters report noted that FCC also warned that because of national security concerns, it may still remove the carriers from the database if the companies cannot offer convincing evidence that their presence in it "is not a threat to national security and is in the public interest." The FCC gave the companies two weeks to respond, Reuters reported.

Fu Liang, an independent IT analyst, told the Global Times on Monday that under FCC regulation, all voice service providers are required to accurately submit their caller authentication implementation plans in the robocall mitigation database. "Chinese telecommunication operators have implemented one of the world's strictest real-name registration systems, and they do not support outbound calls from internet-based (VoIP) phone services," Fu noted.

Analysts urged the US regulator to show more sincerity by actively cooperating with the Chinese side in addressing robocalls- if there's any, for example through industry association cooperation or inter-government communication mechanism. 

Analysts said that the US regulator is again blatantly using "national security" as a pretext to suppress Chinese tech companies. "There are many ways to resolve the so-called robocalls issues, if they do exist. But the US resorted to an extremely domineering way that violates the most fundamental global telecommunication interconnection mechanism and undermines international economic and trade rules," Xiang added.