TP-Link is one of the most popular router manufacturers in the United States, but the company is facing a potential ban due to security concerns about its links with China. The December report of the Wall Street Journal showed that US trade, defense and judiciary departments are investigating TP-Link, though no evidence of deliberate violations has yet emerged.
“We are an American company,” said Jeff Barney, head of TP-Link.
The investigation was aroused by a letter from John Mouolenar, a Republican to Michigan and Raja Krishnamurotti, Democrat of Illinois. Both are on the Home Selection Committee on the strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. They raised concerns that Chinese-backed hackers may be able to endanger TP-Link routers more easily than other brands and thus infiltrate American systems, and that TP-Link is subject to Chinese law. It means that it can be forced to deliver us sensitive to information by Chinese intelligence officials.
Photo: Simon Hill
The TP-Link was founded in 1996 by two brothers in China and the TP-Link USA was founded in 2008. It was not until 2022 that the Chinese wings and the United States began to divide. The process of moving 170 subsidiaries and all ownership of Hong Kong and to the United States was delayed by the epidemic, but was renovated by 2024, Barney says.
TP-Link now has a central office in California and Singapore and production in Vietnam. According to Barney, the study is the design, design, development and production of everything except indoor chipsets. “Our institutions in China are directly governed by us, our employees who are provided by us, we are in our own facilities.” He also says TP-Link has shared documentation with researchers, and its factory in Vietnam has been audited by American retail partners such as Walmart, the best shopping and Costco.
“There are all people in China,” Barney says. He claims that the American rival Netgear uses Chinese ODMS (manufacturers of the main device) to make its products, and that Apple rely on production in China. Netgear says its routers are produced in Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand, not China.
Contemporary concerns
The WSJ report indicates that TP-Link has a 64.9 % share in the US router market, but TP-Link is disputed. The company claims that its share has been suspended by about 20 percent for the past few years, but in 2024 it increased by 36.5 percent and 30.7 percent. But even the low estimate of the TP-Link shows a company at the climb. This mastery is guided at low offensive prices and relatively earlier rowing than Wi-Fi 7 routers, which is regarded as a coordinated effort for floods in the US market.
“Technology should not be exaggerated,” Barney says. “We’re trying to democratic these products.”
However, the scope of the product creates questions, and many are wondering how TP-Link can benefit from routers sold at such low prices compared to competition. Dong Nango, a former Cnet browser, checks this on the deep router review website, Dong knows.
