US lawmakers create US$1.9 billion fund to help carriers remove Huawei and ZTE equipment from their systems

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Tucked into the Covid-19 relief package that the US Congress passed late on Monday night was US$1.9 billion in subsidies for US telecoms carriers to remove and replace Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp networks and equipment that have been deemed national security threats.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) first raised the idea early last year to remove and replace those systems, but since then, the affected carriers – mostly small companies in rural areas – warned that such a move could upend their businesses.