A potential security risk in a conflict with China doesn’t mean an existential eminent risk.

That equipment is everywhere it will take years and cost billions to remove and replace.

And yes there has been already pushback around it both in terms of demands to lower the time frame to 3 years and to increase it to 10.

Risk is a continuum and we accept many risks on a daily basis as a compromise to cut costs. The deadline is that compromise. Grandfather clauses, deadlines, and phased approaches are exceedingly common in regulatory requirements around the world for this reason.

The date is a compromise between security concerns from the government and its allies, and business concerns from telcos that have already shelled out the cash to buy Huawei infrastructure.

That's not how risks work.

Do you buckle your seatbelt before you start driving or when you're 68% of the way to your destination?

A closer car analogy: antique vehicles without seatbelts were not banned from public roads when seatbelts became mandatory.

Except that it's already been decided the towers will be removed, which is counter to your example. My analogy was meant to highlight the delay in action against something that has been deemed a risk.

Almost every safety regulation does this; few are effective immediately. Manufacturing plants need retooled, workforces need retrained, new equipment needs to be acquired and implemented, compliance measure must be implemented, etc.

>Except that it's already been decided the towers will be removed, which is counter to your example.

Grandfather clauses are implementation grace periods that are equal to the expected lifetime of the device. This is not counter to the example -- this is an example that sometimes these grace periods are very generous even for things we are very sure are unsafe.

I have no preference, I am questioning the rationale; if one can use the equipment for 8 more years, then it is safe enough to continue using it.