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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 8 / Wednesday, January 13, 2021 / Rules and Regulations favored equipment and manufacturers and imposing de facto mandates of specific equipment. The Commission agrees with commenters that it should provide carriers with the flexibility to select the equipment or services that fit their needs from categories of equipment and services. The Commission is wary of actions that could harm its communications networks, or result in mandatory purchases of specific equipment included on the Replacement List. The Commission therefore will list categories of suggested replacements on the Reimbursement List.
184. Further, were the Commission to try to identify specific equipment and services, it would risk inadvertently overlooking some equipment or manufacturers because the number and diversity of telecommunications equipment is enormous, with varying model numbers, releases, and configurations. There is no available resource with such information in the record. The Commission believes the better approach in developing the Replacement List is to identify categories of replacement equipment and services that providers of advanced communications service could then look to as they determine the proper equipment and services for their networks.
185. Others suggest that rather than creating a list of permissible hardware and software equipment and services, the Commission should make a list of manufacturers from whom the products and services might be purchased. The Secure Networks Act specifically requires the Commission to produce a list of Suggested Replacements.
Identifying manufacturers would give the imprimatur of government approval and create a government approved list of manufacturers. An approved government listing could influence purchases and appear to convey that the Commission believes certain equipment meets quality and security metrics, which would require intensive review of products to ensure that the Replacement List was accurate and upto-date. It could also lead to security threats as companies rely on the Commissions seal of approval in lieu of conducting their own research into the security of certain equipment.
Further, entities seeking to enter the market may be dissuaded if their customers are only able to purchase equipment from manufacturers approved by the Commission, harming competition and innovation right as the move to Open Radio Access Networks ORAN and virtualized networks opens up markets to new competitors.

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For these reasons, the Commission declines to name specific manufacturers and instead find that a Replacement List with categories of suggested equipment and services to guide providers of advanced communications service is the better interpretation of its obligation.
186. In compiling this Replacement List, the Commission will use the categories of equipment and services in its recently completed information collection as guidance for specific categories on the Replacement List.
Specifically, in the 2019 Supply Chain Order, the Commission directed the Office of Economics and Analytics OEA and WCB to conduct an information collection to determine whether ETCs own equipment or services from Huawei and ZTE; what that equipment is and services are; the costs associated with purchasing and/or installing such equipment and services;
and the costs associated with removing and replacing such equipment and services. Additionally, the Catalog of Expenses adopted as part of the Reimbursement Program will inform the Replacement List by helping to target the type of equipment that will be removed and replaced. The Commission may also review efforts from other Federal partners, such as the Federal Acquisition Security Council, or the Department of Homeland Securitys Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, if those efforts are relevant to the Replacement List.
The Federal Acquisition Security Council was established pursuant to the SECURE Technology Act and the Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force is a publicprivate supply chain risk management partnership established in to identify and develop consensus strategies that enhance supply chain security.
187. The Commission agrees with commenters that the Replacement List should include equipment and services equipped, or upgradable to, be used in ORAN, or in virtualized networks.
Including ORAN equipment and services, which could transform 5G
network architecture, costs, and security, is consistent with the Secure Networks Acts requirement that the Replacement List be technologically neutral. The Secure Networks Act allows for the inclusion of services such as ORAN and virtualized network equipment to the extent that the Commission determines that communications services can serve as an adequate substitute for the installation of communications equipment. The record shows that
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these communications services can serve as an adequate substitute for communications equipment. The Commission makes such a finding here.
The Commission encourages providers participating in the Reimbursement Program to consider this promising technology, along with all other available technologies as they make their procurement decisions.
188. One commenter asserts that the Commission should use a software overlay to allow companies with covered communications equipment and services to keep the equipment in their networks until obsolescence, potentially enabling reimbursement funding to cover more networks. They argue the software overlay will make the replacement of the risky of covered equipment more efficient with proven and fully tested technology tested by the U.S. government, that installs as software on 3rd party communications equipment and mitigates the covered equipment manufacturers ability to remotely access, manipulate traffic, access private and proprietary data and make configuration changes. They further suggest that these software technologies provide the ability to defend the United States communications and data infrastructure, regardless of the location and source of manufacturing allowing time for rip and replace actions to be accelerated at lower cost.
189. Were the Commission to adopt this proposal, covered, potentially harmful equipment could remain in its networks for years, increasing the risks to the Commissions networks. The Commission believes the better approach given the language in the Secure Networks Act is take every measure possible to immediately reduce and eliminate the risk by removing the equipment promptly. Additionally, the Reimbursement Program requires that reimbursement funds be used solely for the purposes of permanent removal of covered communications equipment and services . . . . The public interest and its statutory goals would be best served by the approach the Commission has adopted.
190. The Commission also declines at this time to rely solely on a third party to create a list of suggested categories or the list of replacement equipment and services, as advocated by one commenter. First, the Secure Networks Act requires the Replacement List to be technologically neutral. Trade associations or membership organizations may be inherently biased toward the interests of their membership. Rather than risk the impression of self-dealing, the
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