Adds immediate comments from carriers
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it is ordering the U.S. units of China Telecom 0728.HK, China Unicom 0762.HK and China Mobile 0941.HK to discontinue fixed or mobile broadband internet operations in the United States.
The FCC said it was requiring the Chinese carriers to discontinue services within 60 days of the effective date of the order approved on Thursday. The order also applies to Chinese telecom Pacific Networks and its wholly owned subsidiary ComNet.
The commission previously had barred the companies from providing telecommunications services and those decisions were upheld by U.S. courts.
FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said on Thursday the commission had evidence Chinese telecom carriers were providing broadband services in the United States.
The FCC had cited security concerns in revoking or denying Chinese companies the right to provide U.S. telecommunications services.
The FCC had said Chinese telecom firms were "subject to exploitation, influence and control by the Chinese government."
The Chinese telecom companies did immediately respond to requests for comment.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said China Telecom's website shows that the company operates 26 so-called internet "Points of Presence" (POPs) in the United States and offers colocation, broadband, IP transit, and data center services.
The FCC cited security concerns about Chinese access to POPs typically located within data centers.
"They are interconnecting with other and have access to important Points of Presence and data centers," Starks said, urging "a closer look at the threats that adversarial providers pose to our data and data centers."
The FCC since 2022 has been studying vulnerabilities that it says threaten the security and integrity of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), central to the Internet’s global routing system.
This is the latest action by Washington to restrict Chinese telecom carriers including on undersea cables handling internet traffic.
The FCC previously barred approvals of telecommunications equipment from China's Huawei Technologies and ZTE 000063.SZ and other companies saying they pose "an unacceptable risk" to U.S. security.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
((David.Shepardson@thomsonreuters.com; 2028988324;))