Last month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added new foreign-made consumer-grade routers to its Covered List. The routers were said to introduce supply chain vulnerabilities and constitute security risks. They were said to have been involved in the Volt, Flax,and Salt Typhoon cyberattacks against American infrastructure. The rules apply to new router lines. Vendors need exemptions from the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to be used in the U.S.

Recently, Ookla explored how the FCC’s move could disrupt the router market. The Ookla analysis starts with quotes from Wi-Fi NOW CEO Claus Hetting, who says that consumer routers in the U.S. are manufactured “nearly exclusively” in China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart adds that it is impossible to build consumer routers in the U.S. because “that part of the supply chain doesn’t exist.”

Ookla used its proprietary Speedtest data to estimate which router vendors will be most affected by the new FCC rules. They are eero (10% of Speedtest samples); TP-Link (9.9%); Netgear (9.6%); Arcadyan (8.9%); Askey (5.1%); Sagemcom (4.9%); Asustek (4.8%); Calix (4.4%); Arris (3.8%); and Google (2.8%).

The situation is even more dire due to the pace of router evolution.

“Further, it’s clear that some of these existing gadgets — currently deployed in networks across the U.S. — will soon need to be replaced to take advantage of newer Wi-Fi technologies,” Ookla Lead Industry Analyst Mike Dano wrote in a post about the new FCC rules.

“Wi-Fi 4 was introduced in 2009 and supports theoretical peak speeds up to 600 Mbps. Wi-Fi 7 — the latest generation of the technology — supports theoretical peak speeds up to 46 Gbps, alongside more advanced networking and security technologies.”

Seven of the ten vendors support four generations of Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 4, and Legacy). Two — Sagemcom and Google — don’t yet support Wi-Fi 7.