The Federal Communications Commission will vote on November 19 on shutting China's three biggest state-owned phone companies out of direct access to United States phone numbers. The proposal — "Securing Phone Numbers Against National Security Threats," set for the Commission's November open meeting — names China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, in a move the FCC says is driven by national security and the fight against scam robocalls.
Direct access is about where a phone company gets its numbers. U.S. phone numbers are handed out in blocks by numbering administrators. Internet-phone providers — VoIP companies, which carry calls as data over broadband — have usually had to get theirs through a partner carrier. A provider with direct access takes numbers straight from the administrator instead. It is much cheaper and makes advanced features easier. It lets the holder place calls that show a United States number — and cheap, bulk access to real American numbers is a working tool of mass scam-robocall operations, which is why regulators care who holds that power.
The vote would tighten that gate in a way the three Chinese carriers cannot pass. Under the draft order, every company seeking or holding direct access would have to certify no affiliation with any company on the FCC's Covered List — the agency's list of firms judged an unacceptable national security risk — and uses no covered equipment or services in its network, or else explain those ties. Applicants would have to certify that no international operating authorization of theirs has been denied or revoked on national security or law enforcement grounds. "With this decision, the FCC will be strengthening our first line of defense against bad actors and illegal robocallers," FCC Chair Brendan Carr said. "We are going to enhance the vetting process that all providers must go through before they obtain access to telephone numbers."
The three carriers are barred from providing international telecommunications services to the United States, and their records are why the new certifications shut them out. The FCC denied China Mobile's application for an international authorization in 2019 on national security grounds. It revoked China Telecom's authorizations in 2021 and China Unicom's in 2022, finding that Chinese government ownership and control let them access, store, disrupt or misroute American communications, and it later placed China Telecom's and China Mobile's American arms on the Covered List. What remained open was the separate numbering door this vote closes.
The backdrop is espionage. In late 2024, Washington said a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group, Salt Typhoon, had stolen Americans' call records and infiltrated United States telecommunications companies, and the FBI has said this year that the threat from Salt Typhoon is "still very much ongoing." The wider package announced alongside the vote would bar internet-phone providers that run on equipment from Covered List companies such as Huawei and ZTE, ban Chinese laboratories from testing electronics for the American market from December 2028, and could revoke direct number authorizations of other Chinese companies the FCC judges to be security risks.
Beijing answered on Friday. China's foreign ministry said it firmly opposes the likely ban and accused Washington of overstretching national security and abusing state power to suppress Chinese enterprises. "China will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its own legitimate rights and interests," foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment. China has consistently denied wrongdoing.
For ordinary Americans, nothing about their phone service changes: no one's number, carrier or bill is affected, and the three Chinese companies have not sold phone service to U.S. consumers for years. The effect of the vote, if adopted on November 19, is on the security side — keeping American numbering resources, and the trust that comes with a call showing an American number, out of the hands of carriers Washington says answer to Beijing, and tightening the vetting of every provider that takes numbers directly.
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