The Federal Communications Commission has told TP-Link Systems Inc. that some of its Wi-Fi routers are violating power level limits, a move that could pave the way for additional bans on the California-based tech company’s equipment.

The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology told TP-Link in a pair of letters that it has “tentatively determined that TP-Link included false or incorrect information in its applications” for equipment authorizations for four of its router models and that three of those models exceeded power usage limits during testing.

The letters, dated Oct. 15, are posted publicly but have not been previously reported. They are signed by the office’s laboratory division chief, who instructed TP-Link to “provide a detailed response with supporting documentation by Oct. 30” and to include the office’s national security team on the response.

The model numbers cited in the FCC’s letters correspond to a range of product offerings, from TP-Link’s “Archer” premium gaming router with a list price of nearly $600 to an entry-level travel router with a list price of nearly $140.

The notices could lead to an FCC ban on TP-Link’s equipment, said Geoffrey Irving, a nonresident scholar focusing on technology at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“These actions are part of a continuing trend that shows the FCC aggressively enforcing its technical rules,” said Irving, a former official in the Commerce Department unit that investigated TP-Link previously. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr “has used existing and new regulations to address national security risks in many novel ways,” Irving said.

TP-Link corporate affairs officer Steve Kovsky said the closely held company will review the router data, re-test as necessary, and that, if there is a problem, identify and remediate it. Any potential power violations would be “not indicative of anything other than an aberration,” he said, noting the four products named in the FCC’s letters collectively account for less than one-third of 1% of total US unit sales this year. The FCC declined to comment.

The inquiries by the FCC add to a list of legal and regulatory hurdles for TP-Link, which has faced investigations by the Commerce and Justice Departments and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as lawsuits by a handful of states, Bloomberg has reported. The inquiries and suits involve a mixture of national security, antitrust, privacy, and consumer protection issues related to the company’s founding in China and ongoing business operations there.

TP-Link has said all of its product and data security functions are handled in the US and that no government, including China’s, has access to or control over its products’ design or production.

Founded in China three decades ago, TP-Link has sought to distance itself from its origins. The company in 2024 completed a split into two separate entities: an American unit headquartered in Irvine, California, and a Chinese unit based in Shenzhen. However, the US unit still has substantial operations in mainland China, Bloomberg found in an investigation published last year.

Before the split, TP-Link was the world’s largest provider of consumer Wi-Fi equipment, according to market research firm IDC. Its routers, which relay information from the internet to devices such as computers and smartphones, are widely sold through retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Best Buy Co., and can be found in homes and small businesses across the country.

Some US national security officials, lawmakers and state officials have warned that the Chinese government could seek to actively enlist TP-Link in cyberattacks, which the company denies.

Inquiries regarding power usage are sometimes made on a routine basis to ensure that products approved for sale in the US by FCC-affiliated labs function the way they are supposed to, according to lawyers familiar with the FCC’s process. TP-Link itself resolved similar FCC allegations of power-level violations in 2016 with a $200,000 fine.

However, the lawyers said that may not be the case this time, citing the list of other US and state government actions involving TP-Link and the fact that the FCC itself has become much more aggressive during the second Trump administration, including toward TP-Link.

In a move widely seen as directed at the company, the FCC in March banned the sale of all new models of foreign-made routers unless companies obtained waivers, Bloomberg has reported. TP-Link’s rivals including Netgear Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Eero and Asustek Computer Inc. have received such permission, but the agency has not granted a waiver to TP-Link. The company recently made a $1 billion commitment to invest in US factories as part of its bid for approval.

If TP-Link is not able to resolve the FCC’S power inquiries, it could face a prohibition on sales of legacy router models as well, according to the lawyers familiar with the process.

The FCC’s letters say that TP-Link routers emit significantly higher power levels than authorized and that TP-Link might have misinformed the FCC about certain aspects of the products. Virtually any technology product that uses radio frequencies must pass inspection by FCC-certified labs to ensure they don’t interfere with other devices.

Routers that exceed power limits could interfere with the operations of all manner of devices that share access to the internet under common rules, affecting anything from other routers to garage door openers to public safety communications, according to industry lawyers.

Companies selling routers that use more power than they’re allowed could also gain an unfair business advantage as the practice could enable the devices to perform better than those in compliance with regulations, the lawyers said.