FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the US regulator will vote at its meeting in May on whether to give China Mobile a licence to operate in the US. Following recommendations from government agencies such as the NTIA, the chairman plans to recommend a vote against the licence, based on national security interests.
Pai noted in a statement that this is the first time the US executive branch has ever recommended that the FCC deny an application due to national security concerns. As a result, the chairman decided that approving China Mobile's application "would not serve the public interest".
The Chinese operator requested the licence back in 2011, and the FCC asked the NTIA, which coordinates telecom policy for the US government, to assess whether the licence was in the US public interest. The NTIA issued its opinion last year, saying that "after significant engagement with China Mobile, concerns about increased risks to US law enforcement and national security interests were unable to be resolved". China Mobile offered potential solutions to mitigate the presumed risk, but the NTIA found these were not sufficient.
