Team Telecom, a shadowy US national security unit tasked with protecting America’s telecommunications systems, is delaying plans by Google, Facebook and other tech companies for the next generation of international fiber optic cables.
Team Telecom comprises representatives from the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice (including the FBI), who assess foreign investments in American telecom infrastructure, with a focus on cybersecurity and surveillance vulnerabilities.
Team Telecom works at a notoriously sluggish pace, taking over seven years to decide that letting China Mobile operate in the US would “raise substantial and serious national security and law enforcement risks,” for instance. And while Team Telecom is working, applications are stalled at the FCC.
The on-going delays to submarine cable projects, which can cost nearly half a billion dollars each, come with significant financial impacts. They also cede advantage to connectivity projects that have not attracted Team Telecom’s attention – such as the nascent internet satellite mega-constellations from SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon.
Team Telecom’s investigations have long been a source of tension within Silicon Valley. Google’s subsidiary GU Holdings Inc has been building a network of international submarine fiber-optic cables for over a decade. Every cable that lands on US soil is subject to Team Telecom review, and each one has faced delays and restrictions.
In April 2017, Google, Facebook and PLDC, a Hong Kong company, applied for permission to lay a 13,000-kilometer cable between California, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Philippines. The cable, dubbed Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) was planned to be operational by February 2018, delivering up to 120 terabits of second of data.
“With the largest design capacity of any existing or announced cable on any US-Asia route, PLCN will immediately and significantly increase regional capacity upon deployment,” wrote Google. “PLCN will help connect US internet users and businesses to Asia, the world’s biggest internet market.”
Team Telecom had other ideas. It removed Google’s application in November that year, for investigation. In December, Google amended its application to reflect the fact that a Chinese company had taken control of PLDC. The application was returned to the FCC in January 2018, and almost immediately removed again by Team Telecom.
By September 2018, the hold-up was starting to hurt. In a letter to the FCC, Google wrote: “[We] are engaged in the governmental and commercial discussions necessary for the national security review.
However, [we] do not expect that those discussions will be concluded in time for the Commission to fully consider and grant the underlying application by October 1, 2018, the date by which [we] need licensing certainty in order to commence marine operations, including laying the cable, in US territory.”
Google was worried about the availability of a cable-laying ship for the project, which was already six months behind schedule. It was granted temporary permission to continue with construction, but with no guarantee that Team Telecom would ultimately approve the project.
Any further delay, Google feared, would “impose significant economic costs. Depending on the length of the delay, the financial viability of the project could be at risk.”
Google is still waiting for Team Telecom to clear the PLCN cable, as well as a cable to Chile called Curie, and another between the US and France. It did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2015, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly described the Team Telecom process as “an inextricable black hole.” In a blog post, he wrote: “Once transaction applications are submitted, there is little to no information available to the Commission, much less applicants, on status or potential areas of concern, [and] no timeline for conclusion. The haphazard process does not provide any precedential value for future applicants to know what may be acceptable or unacceptable practices, structure or partnerships. This leaves applicants subject to the whim of the individual members of Team Telecom.”
Even when Team Telecom finally concludes its investigations, the result is rarely a clean bill of health. Companies with submarine cables landing in the US usually have to sign a letter of agreement, or a more comprehensive network security agreement (NSA), before Team Telecom will allow their FCC applications to proceed.
The NSA signed in 2016 by Google for a cable between Oregon, Japan and Taiwan code-named Faster is a typical example. It requires Google to base the cable’s network operations center in the US, staff it with screened personnel, and comply with lawful surveillance requests from the US government. It must prevent surveillance by foreign governments, and provide a complete list of all the network equipment and vendors it uses, including any changes.
Google must also have the ability to promptly interrupt traffic through its cables, if necessary, and submit to site visits from national security agencies on demand. Communications projects from over 120 companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint, are reportedly subject to similar NSAs and letters of agreement.
Although NSAs are drafted as voluntary agreements, “the notion that NSAs are voluntary is farcical,” says Joshua Abbott, executive director of the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at Arizona State University. “Private parties to an NSA face an enormous disparity in bargaining position. None choose voluntarily to enter negotiations with Team Telecom or have the option to walk away if they ever hope to obtain FCC approval for their services.”
As FCC Commissioner O’Rielly remarked back in 2015: “Without a transparent and balanced process, any decisions resulting [from Team Telecom investigations] fuel the charge that blatant political influences led to a particular outcome. This can undermine the legitimacy of the Commission in dealings internationally and could further inhibit development of an independent international telecommunications regulatory structure that the US has sought for decades.”
O’Rielly sought fewer restrictions on foreign ownership and limits to how long Team Telecom could take assessing applications. In 2016, the FCC even went so far as to propose rules to standardize and streamline the process.
But that effort stalled with the election of President Trump, who in May signed an executive order enabling the federal government to block US companies from buying foreign telecom equipment altogether, a move aimed at Chinese networking giant Huawei.
With politics, national security and telecom technology now more closely entwined than ever before, the prospects of reform to Team Telecom look dim. And that means some of the world’s biggest connectivity projects will likely continue to face lengthy, expensive delays.