A 2027 U.S.–China conflict with Australia aligned to the U.S. China trade stops immediately, Taiwan exports are slowed/limited, and China launches large-scale cyber disruption in waves. This is a planning scenario, not a forecast. Planning scenario, not a forecast. No end date is set.
Service on the installed network continues. The war shock is the replacement flow and a cyber wave against carrier routers. China-made telecommunications equipment from Huawei and from ZTE has been on the Covered List since March 12, 2021, and on March 23, 2026 the Commission added routers produced in a foreign country except routers granted a conditional approval.
Handsets are the large China customs exposure, and that exposure has already narrowed. Smartphone imports for consumption were 58,855,739,990 dollars in 2025 after 56,125,899,371 dollars in 2024. China was 23,486,049,483 dollars in 2025 after 40,678,638,033 dollars in 2024. Calculated from 23,486,049,483 dollars divided by 58,855,739,990 dollars, China was 39.9 percent of smartphone imports for consumption. Calculated from 40,678,638,033 dollars divided by 56,125,899,371 dollars, China was 72.5 percent in 2024.
Taiwan is a low exposure on phones and a real exposure on network equipment. Calculated from 11,785,735 dollars divided by 58,855,739,990 dollars, Taiwan was 0.02 percent of smartphone imports. Switching and routing apparatus imports were 30,833,550,893 dollars in 2025 after 16,344,943,710 dollars in 2024. Taiwan was 2,855,481,199 dollars in 2025 after 2,860,759,319 dollars in 2024. Calculated from 2,855,481,199 dollars divided by 30,833,550,893 dollars, Taiwan was 9.3 percent of switching and routing apparatus imports. Calculated from 2,860,759,319 dollars divided by 16,344,943,710 dollars, Taiwan was 17.5 percent in 2024.
The short-horizon operating analog is hours, not a year-over-year price peak. A nationwide AT&T wireless outage on February 22, 2024 lasted at least 12 hours. The same outage affected more than 125 million devices. The monthly bill analog on a national carrier is separate. Wireless retail postpaid ARPA was 147.31 dollars per account in the latest full year, and wireless retail postpaid ARPA rose 2.3 percent.
Rip-and-replace is already unfinished. The June 15, 2026 report says final certifications were filed for 53 of the 126 Priority 1 applications, and a Priority 1 recipient is one with two million or fewer customers. In the latest status round, approximately 35 percent of recipients reported some challenges with securing replacement equipment. The private sector owns and operates the majority of communications infrastructure.
China trade stopping removes the 2025 smartphone customs value from China of 23,486,049,483 dollars. India was 22,998,329,933 dollars and Vietnam was 10,794,417,588 dollars on the same line. Calculated from 22,998,329,933 dollars divided by 58,855,739,990 dollars, India was 39.1 percent of smartphone imports. Calculated from 10,794,417,588 dollars divided by 58,855,739,990 dollars, Vietnam was 18.3 percent of smartphone imports. Those two origins are the substitute book already in the customs table.
Taiwan smartphone customs value was 11,785,735 dollars in 2025 and 1,312,850 dollars in 2024. That is the low-exposure proof on handsets. It is not an equipment-import dependency. The equipment dependency on the line that did return is switching and routing apparatus, where Taiwan was 2,855,481,199 dollars in 2025.
Covered communications equipment is already a legal constraint, not a new 2027 category. Huawei telecommunications equipment and ZTE telecommunications equipment were included on March 12, 2021. Foreign-produced routers, except those with a conditional approval, were included on March 23, 2026. The installed network that has already been replaced does not come back into China trade. The network that has not finished removal is the live program.
The domestic break in week 1 is a router or registration failure, on the outage record and on the advisory. The February 22, 2024 outage blocked more than 92 million voice calls and more than 25,000 calls to 911 call centers, and it cut off FirstNet users. The opened advisory says actors focus on large backbone routers of major telecommunications providers and on provider-edge and customer-edge routers, and that they modify routers for persistent access. This paragraph does not repeat exploit steps.
A December 3, 2024 joint guidance responded to a PRC-affiliated actor's compromise of networks of major global telecommunications providers. The compromise of private communications impacted a limited number of individuals primarily involved in government or political activity. That is an espionage path against the carrier, not a published count of disconnected subscribers.
The workforce that staffs restoration is the telecommunications employment series, 559.1 thousand persons in October 2026, seasonally adjusted. September 2026 was 559.8 thousand. The series is an industry headcount, not a split by carrier size.
Short-horizon outage analog: a nationwide wireless outage lasted at least 12 hours. It blocked more than 92 million voice calls and more than 25,000 calls to 911 call centers. This is not a year-over-year price peak.
Short-horizon price analog: wireless retail postpaid ARPA was 147.31 dollars per account. That is a monthly service price. The printed annual change of 2.3 percent is not the figure used in this band.
Supply-delay analog already in the reimbursement record: approximately 35 percent of recipients reported some challenges with securing replacement equipment. The same passage says recipients report long delays between ordering and shipment and price increases since the application. No week count was printed.
Full-year service-price analog: wireless retail postpaid ARPA rose 2.3 percent. The filing prints the change as 3.31 dollars, from 144.00 dollars to 147.31 dollars. The handset context for the same horizon is the calculated China share falling from 72.5 percent to 39.9 percent.
Wave 1 is the communications network itself: national mobile carriers, fiber ISPs, customer-premises routers, and small rip-and-replace carriers. Radio access and retail fixed broadband customers are Wave 1 indirect because they drop when those routers drop. The advisory names backbone, provider-edge, and customer-edge routers. The outage analog is at least 12 hours. This ordering is a planning model.
Wave 2 is the enterprise layer behind the routers: carrier billing and care systems as a direct hit, and switching and routing buyers as an indirect procurement hit when Taiwan exports slow. The physical session can be up while the bill or the replacement order is not. This ordering is a planning inference.
Wave 3 is the distributed handset channel. It loses the China smartphone flow of 23,486,049,483 dollars. It is indirect because the failure starts at the dock and at the carrier, not as a week-1 attack on the store. Taiwan phones are not the shortage, at a calculated 0.02 percent. This ordering is a planning inference.
origin sharepercent
China was 39.9 percent
USITC DataWebIndia was 39.1 percent
USITC DataWebVietnam was 38.4 percent
USITC DataWebTaiwan was 9.3 percent
USITC DataWebChina was 1.1 percent
USITC DataWebTaiwan was 0.02 percent
USITC DataWeboutage hourshours
lasted at least 12 hours
FCC outage releaseprice changepercent
rose 2.3 percent
Verizon annual reportreplacement delaypercent
approximately 35 percent
FCC reimbursement reportendpointsmillion
125 million devices
FCC outage releasecarrier connectionsthousands of connections
115,903 thousand
Verizon annual report7,451 thousand
Verizon annual report3,407 thousand
Verizon annual reportmonthly pricedollars per month
147.31 dollars
Verizon annual reportfinancial levelbillion dollars
17.0 billion
Verizon annual reportworkforcethousands of persons
559.1 thousand
FREDConfirm which new handset purchase orders still name a China origin against the 23,486,049,483 dollar baseline, and which routing orders name Taiwan against the 2,855,481,199 dollar baseline.
Put backbone, provider-edge, and customer-edge routers on the week-1 watch. The outage analog lasted at least 12 hours and affected more than 125 million devices. The communications sector is critical infrastructure because it provides an enabling function.
Pre-clear India and Vietnam handset supply against the 2025 customs values of 22,998,329,933 dollars and 10,794,417,588 dollars, and Vietnam and Mexico routing supply against 11,853,014,698 dollars and 4,933,527,309 dollars.
Match in-flight rip-and-replace orders to the May 8, 2026 deadline and to any extension. Final certifications stand at 53 of the 126 Priority 1 applications, and approximately 35 percent of recipients already reported replacement-equipment challenges.
Separate the service bill from the device bill. Wireless retail postpaid ARPA was 147.31 dollars and rose 2.3 percent. Service revenue was 80,912 million dollars. Wireless equipment revenue was 21,779 million dollars. Lenders should not treat a handset-dock stop as a loss of the whole service book.
Do not plan a Taiwan handset shortage. Taiwan was 0.02 percent of smartphone imports. Do plan a Taiwan routing shortage at 9.3 percent of switching and routing apparatus imports, with Vietnam already the larger origin.
National wireless network, hours down. Act when a national wireless outage lasts more than 12 hours. Twelve hours is the February 22, 2024 restoration time. This 12-hour line is a planning line. The FCC release does not publish it as a covenant.
Priority 1 final certifications, applications. Act when final certifications are still at or below 53 of the 126 Priority 1 applications. Fifty-three is the June 15, 2026 print. This line is a planning line at the latest observed count. The Bureau does not publish 53 as a minimum covenant.
Smartphone imports from China, dollars. Act when smartphone imports for consumption from China fall below 11,743,024,742 dollars. That threshold is half of 23,486,049,483, rounded to the nearest dollar, and the half is calculated. This line is a planning line. The trade table does not publish a minimum China phone value.
Switching and routing imports from Taiwan, dollars. Act when switching and routing apparatus imports from Taiwan fall below 1,427,740,600 dollars. That threshold is half of 2,855,481,199, rounded to the nearest dollar, and the half is calculated. This line is a planning line. No covenant sets a minimum Taiwan routing value.
Isolate backbone and provider-edge routers from the change window that produced the 12-hour outage.
Keep the service bill, at 147.31 dollars of ARPA, on a separate forecast from wireless equipment revenue of 21,779 million dollars.
Pre-clear India and Vietnam handset origins using the 2025 customs values.
Treat customer-edge and provider-edge routers as the direct exposure.
Check new router models against the March 23, 2026 Covered List addition and the conditional-approval exception.
Use wireline broadband connections of 7,451 thousand as the fixed book to restore first.
File against the 53 of 126 certification print and the May 8, 2026 deadline or the granted extension.
Treat the approximately 35 percent replacement-challenge rate as the supply case already in force.
Haircut the China handset book at 23,486,049,483 dollars and the Taiwan routing book at 2,855,481,199 dollars.
Leave service revenue of 80,912 million dollars on the continuing book unless hours down exceed the 12-hour planning line.
Do not use a Taiwan phone share. The calculated share is 0.02 percent.
National wireless outage, hours down The analog lasted at least 12 hours, with more than 125 million devices affected and more than 92 million voice calls blocked. Hours down is the week-1 service signal.
Wireless retail postpaid ARPA, dollars per account The level is 147.31 dollars and the printed annual change is 2.3 percent. A weekly proxy is the billed service price, not the handset promotion.
Smartphone imports for consumption from China, dollars The 2025 baseline is 23,486,049,483 dollars, a calculated 39.9 percent of 58,855,739,990 dollars. A break in the monthly customs value is the handset-dock signal.
Switching and routing apparatus imports from Taiwan, dollars The 2025 baseline is 2,855,481,199 dollars, a calculated 9.3 percent of 30,833,550,893 dollars. This is the Taiwan equipment signal. The phone line is not.
Priority 1 final certifications, count of applications The June 15, 2026 print is 53 of the 126 Priority 1 applications. Movement in that count is the rip-and-replace progress signal. The customer definition is two million or fewer.
Telecommunications employment, thousands of persons October 2026 is 559.1 thousand. A further drop is the restoration-staff signal. June 2026 was 570.3 thousand.
Observed baselines are the trade table, the FCC outage release, the June 15, 2026 reimbursement report, the Covered List order, the Verizon statistics, the employment series, and the two CISA pages. Scenario inferences are the wave order, the ability of India and Vietnam to absorb the China handset book, and any claim that a 2027 outage matches the 12-hour analog.
Decision-changing limits. The CTIA site that was opened is a script shell and prints no national connection census, so no association total is used. The employment series does not split establishments by firm size. Modem, aerial, optical-fiber cable, and parts queries did not return totals, so those Taiwan shares are unpublished. The India query for switching and routing apparatus did not return, so no India share is stated for that line. A weeks-of-lead-time figure was not printed. An average cybercrime cost was not used.
Calculated figures use two printed inputs and are labeled. Smartphone shares use the country dollars divided by 58,855,739,990 for 2025 and by 56,125,899,371 for the 2024 China share. Routing shares use the country dollars divided by 30,833,550,893 for 2025 and by 16,344,943,710 for the 2024 Taiwan share. The planning half of China smartphones is 23,486,049,483 divided by 2, rounded to 11,743,024,742 dollars. The planning half of Taiwan routing gear is 2,855,481,199 divided by 2, rounded to 1,427,740,600 dollars. The 2.3 percent ARPA change is the printed percent.
The outage was not a cyberattack. Using its 12 hours as the restoration analog does not assert that a future incident has the same cause. The advisory overlaps reporting that vendors call Salt Typhoon and other commercial names, and the agencies do not adopt one of those names. Victim-company lists that were not in the fetched pages are not used. The ten-million-customer eligibility line was not in the report that was opened. Priority 1 in that report is two million or fewer customers.
| Node | Primary impact | Time horizon | Cyber wave | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National mobile carriers | Backbone routers of major carriers are the direct week-1 target, and service on the installed radio network continues unless those routers are taken down. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | CISA advisory; Verizon connections; FCC outage release |
| Radio access network | Installed radio sites keep radiating, and they lose the customer session only if the core or the provider-edge router fails. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (indirect) | FCC outage release; CISA advisory |
| Fiber ISPs | Fiber and wireline broadband stay up on the installed plant, and a provider-edge or customer-edge router compromise is the direct hit on the ISP path. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | Verizon wireline connections; CISA advisory |
| Customer-premises equipment | New routers and other premises gear face the Covered List and the China trade stop, while routers already in homes keep passing traffic until they are replaced or compromised. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | FCC Covered List order; CISA advisory |
| Handset channels | New handsets lose the China customs flow, and Taiwan is not the phone source that replaces it. | 0-6 months | Wave 3 (indirect) | USITC smartphone imports for consumption |
| Switching and routing buyers | Replacement switching and routing apparatus slows when Taiwan exports slow, which is a procurement hit rather than an immediate loss of the installed network. | 1-6 months | Wave 2 (indirect) | USITC switching and routing apparatus |
| Small rip-and-replace carriers | Priority 1 carriers are still removing covered equipment, and a new supply stop lands on a program that already reports replacement delays. | 0-6 months | Wave 1 (direct) | FCC eighth reimbursement report |
| Carrier billing and care systems | Bills and care portals can stop while the radio network is still up, which is the second-wave enterprise system after the routers. | 1-6 months | Wave 2 (direct) | Verizon service revenue; CISA December 2024 guidance |
| Retail fixed broadband customers | Retail fiber and fixed-wireless customers lose the session when the upstream router fails, which follows the ISP hit rather than starting it. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (indirect) | Verizon broadband connections; CISA advisory |