American made routers and access points

[cobra_shipwreck]

I am not finding any good information on what companies actually make their equipment in the states.

Most stuff is made in china such as TP-Link, Cisco, Aruba, and others.

Asus and others are made in Taiwan and a lot of manufacturing is moving there and to south korea as the quality consistency is better than china.

So far all i Can find is Avalon Wireless is made in the US and distributed by l-com.com.

 

[Tech9]

Many Asus models are made in China as well.

 

[sfx2000]

The challenges with making things here in the US for the moment - this could change, but...

1) Supply Chains - remember, it's not just the main chips, it's all the popcorn parts in the device - the resistors, capacitors, inductors, screws and bolts, AC adapters, etc - the circuit boards even - Taiwan and Shenzen have established supplier agreements with all these parts vendors, and many times, it's vertically integrated.

2) Hardware and Software Agreements with the Chipset Vendors - this is actually a big deal - as getting access to the chips themselves won't happen without signing agreements with the silicon providers, and then there's the SW license agreements which include patent licensing - those agreements usually go with the chipsets.

And that's where things get weird - let's say company X wants to build a router - they go to Qualcomm, Broadcom, or Mediatek and get a contract in place with them - then they have to go to a contract manufacturer that is in that silicon supply chain - for example, Askey or Foxconn or whoever - that CM also has agreements in place - so it's all very locked down in a way that drives value back to - you guess it, the chipset vendors...

It's not impossible to do everything in-house - there are those that do - but I am sharing this from a perspective of someone who has done a HW startup - and we focus on where we add value, which is the design on the front end, and the sales chain on the other side once the device goes into production.

This, by the way, is where many Kickstarter Hardware Projects fail - it's incredibly hard to do that part outside of the established players - best to work with a good CM that is in the value chain....

@TheLostSwede could probably share more insight, as he's also involved in the business...

 

[coxhaus]

It is mostly the software made in the US. The hardware is designed in the US but built to spec in China.

If you buy a Dell and run pfsense or Untangle(Arista NGF) then you are buying US or about as close as you are going to get.
There are other software packages written in the US out there. Not really any of the Chinese software out there that runs well and is supported well as far as I know.

 

[Tech9]

This, by the way, is where many Kickstarter Hardware Projects fail

You send something to China and before it comes back to you as a manufactured product you find it on Alibaba under 5 different names. This is another very common problem. They just don't care about rights and agreements. I moved out of China the manufacturing of industrial device years ago.

 

[sfx2000]

You send something to China and before it comes back to you as a manufactured product you find it on Alibaba under 5 different names. This is another very common problem. They just don't care about rights and agreements. I moved out of China the manufacturing of industrial device years ago.

Depends... There have been horror stories of IP theft, but a lot of this goes down to vetting the CM, and what sector of the industry one is in...

I have not had issues with IP theft in neither Shenzen or Taipei - the risk is too high for the CM, both on a legal basis as well as reputation - as this goes for both HW and SW.

We lock the SW to our HW via a security method which I won't go into here, but suffice it to say, we know exactly what is built, when it's built, and which lines in the factory it was built on (along with a ton of other things) - we have to as we pay royalties back to the chipset vendors and other licensed things like patents and whatnot.

 

[cobra_shipwreck]

So really the question is which brands are mostly or wholly made here in the states? Concerns have come up in the intelligence community in the past decade where out of country manufacturing was prone to back doors and weak security to benefit intelligence services of other countries.

I get the fact that the chip fabrication is mostly out of country, but at this point it is apparent China is a place to be avoided to a greater part at this point due to the endemic quality control issues they have.

I was working with a lead engineer with Powervar on a power supply issue (failed main transformer lines) short of a recall and come to find out china only cared about quantity of parts installed, not that the right parts were put on the correct spots on the circuit board and they were caught not fixing their errors when failed units were sent back. They eventually moved all manufacturing to South Korea as a result and ALL the quality issues disappeared.

 

[sfx2000]

So really the question is which brands are mostly or wholly made here in the states? Concerns have come up in the intelligence community in the past decade where out of country manufacturing was prone to back doors and weak security to benefit intelligence services of other countries.

I get the fact that the chip fabrication is mostly out of country, but at this point it is apparent China is a place to be avoided to a greater part at this point due to the endemic quality control issues they have.

In my experience, I haven't had issues with security, and I've gone thru multiple security audits by accredited test houses that do this kind of work.

Quality Control - the comes with vetting the CM partners - and there, one has to be very specific in what you want them to do, everything, and I mean everything, needs to be spelled out in black and white, and don't give them any latitude...

I have to buy all the parts, but they don't get paid until I have finished goods at the end of the line - if it fails QA, they eat the cost and pay me for those parts. Similarly, I have to maintain warranty reserve, meaning that there's a percentage of stock on hand that I cannot sell, so it's very important for us to ensure that quality control meets industry best practices.

Like I mentioned, it's all about vetting the CM partner, if this isn't done, then all bets are off.

Like anything else, one gets what they pay for... my manufacturing lead is also our quality engineer (not product test, that's different) - he has over 30 years in the business, and I've personally worked with him for nearly 20 years. Our CM has to meet his standards and he's pretty hard core on this.

 

[Techtype]

https://www.techjunkie.com/which-ro...t=All Asus routers,are manufactured in Taiwan.

Which Router Brands Are Not Manufactured in China?

All Asus routers are manufactured in Taiwan.

D-Link is another company originating from Taiwan

Synology was founded in Taiwan in 2000. It’s mostly known for different network-attached storage options, but it also manufactures Wi-Fi routers.

 

[Tech9]

All Asus routers are manufactured in Taiwan.

No, I had a bunch of Asus routers and they were manufactured in Taiwan, China and Vietnam. My current RT-AX86U is made in China.

 

[Techtype]

No, I had a bunch of Asus routers and they were manufactured in Taiwan, China and Vietnam. My current RT-AX86U is made in China.

Just quoting the site referenced, but I think in this case you are correct.

 

[Tech9]

Asus doesn't manufacture routers. They are all manufactured by 3rd party company in their plants along with other brands and models. Most popular Asus routers have Arcadyan model number, for example. Arcadyan have manufacturing plants in different countries, including China.

 

[RMerlin]

but at this point it is apparent China is a place to be avoided to a greater part at this point due to the endemic quality control issues they have.

It simply depends on how much you are willing to pay. If you get the cheapest manufacturer possible, expect them to care very little about the product and just try to manufacturer it for as cheap as possible, with as few rejects as possible. If you go for a big manufacturer such as Foxxconn, you can expect higher quality. If there is one thing nobody could ever fault Apple about, it's the QC of their products.

 

[Tech9]

And Vietnam.

Yes.

I had a bunch of Asus routers and they were manufactured in Taiwan, China and Vietnam

Some of my RT-AC86Us were made in Vietnam.

 

[TheLostSwede]

As somone that used to work for a router manufacturer in Taiwan, I can tell you that there are very few companies in Taiwan that are capable of manufacturing routers these days, as most of that moved to xina or elsewhere.
As for the US, even if it says made in the US, it's most likely only assembled there, with the PCBs being made elsewhere.
There's a company in Lithuania that makes routers though, but they're fairly basic and focus on industrial use.
They use fairly basic Qualcomm hardware in most of their products. I know this is not the US, but it's the only company outside of Asia that I know of that makes everything, including their own firmware.

Teltonika Networks

Global manufacturer of IoT connectivity equipment with over 25 years of market experience. Discover the best products for your IoT solutions.

teltonika-networks.com

 

[sfx2000]

As somone that used to work for a router manufacturer in Taiwan, I can tell you that there are very few companies in Taiwan that are capable of manufacturing routers these days, as most of that moved to xina or elsewhere.

I'm currently building HW in Taiwan - but there, the CM is pushing to move to Vietnam...

 

[Greg72]

Those units claimed to be assembled in North America have all of the parts manufactured in China, etc and then the unassembled units come here to the states for everything to be put together in one neat package. Nothing is going to be truly manufactured here in the U.S. unless it is speciality Government hardware.

 

[sfx2000]

Those units claimed to be assembled in North America have all of the parts manufactured in China, etc and then the unassembled units come here to the states for everything to be put together in one neat package. Nothing is going to be truly manufactured here in the U.S. unless it is speciality Government hardware.

Perhaps not...

The US Navy, NATO, and NASA are using a shady Chinese company’s encryption chips

US government warns encryption chipmaker Hualan has suspicious ties to China’s military.

arstechnica.com

 

[TheLostSwede]

What about Linksys? Do they manufacture routers in other countries too?

They're part of Foxconn these days, just like Belkin, so most likely made in the PRC.

 

[Greg72]

Perhaps not...

The US Navy, NATO, and NASA are using a shady Chinese company’s encryption chips

US government warns encryption chipmaker Hualan has suspicious ties to China’s military.

arstechnica.com

Guessing that you never read my post. As for chips, those are rarely made here since all chip manufacturers have production facilities in Asia to get around EPA laws.