A number of my clients are receiving letters from telecom supply houses and vendors warning them of price increases due to the tariffs recently imposed on trade with China. It’s no secret in the telecom world that much of the electronics and components used to build fiber or fixed wireless networks come from China.

The following list is from a letter sent from Power & Tel, a big telecom supply house to their customers. Other supply houses and vendors are sending similar notices. This notice lists examples of components that will receive the new tariff additives. As is usual in these situations there will be components that are in gray areas and it will take a while for the vendors to figure out the full tariff impact.

The new tariffs were imposed by the U.S. Trade Representatives (USTR) at the order of the President and are implemented by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agencies. There have been multiple USTR lists of affected products, and following is Power & Tel’s take on the various tariff actions:

USTR Tariff List 1 – 25% tariff effective on July 6, 2018. Affects optical fiber cables, aluminum, copper, steel & iron.

USTR Tariff List 2 – 25% tariff effective on August 23, 2018. Affects fiber adapters, connectors, splice sleeves, grounding hardware.

USTR Tariff List 3 – 10% tariff effective on September 24, 2018. On January 1, 2019 the tariff increases to 25%. Affects electronics, power cables, active optical cable, direct attach cables, cable management and racks, batteries, power supplies, metal hand tools, power tools, hardware.

Included in this list are several major components that are part of every broadband deployment. This includes things like:

• Core routers and switches for fiber and wireless networks
• Core electronics and customer ONTs for FTTP
• Core electronics and customer radios for fixed wireless
• The core of central offices and huts including racks, batteries, power supplies, grounding hardware, cables, hardware, test equipment and other tools.
• Cable settop boxes and WiFi routers
• There are numerous sources of non-Chinese fiber optic cable, but many of the components for an outside plant network like fiber adapters, connectors, pre-connectorized drops, etc. will be affected.

I try not to be political in my blog – and it’s normally easy to do because broadband deployment is a topic that enjoys bipartisan support. I’ve always found in rural America that politicians from both parties support fiber and wireless network deployments because they understand that their local economy needs broadband to thrive and survive. I visited a number of rural counties in the last year where the elected officials say that lack of broadband access has become the number one issue of concern in their county.

However, I have no doubt when looking at the size and scope of these tariffs that the cost of building broadband just got more expensive. I won’t be surprised if this doesn’t kill or delay some pending construction projects, and it’s something that will have to be factored in to any future-looking business plans. I’m sure I share the sentiment of many in the industry and hope that these tariffs are temporary.