The FCC is cracking down on DJI technology that evaded a foreign drone ban

last year, We told you about Xtrathe company that allows DJI to sneak its popular cameras into the United States, and Skyrover, the brand DJI drones seem compelling to sell. They’re just two of the many companies that DJI is suspected of starting to evade Banning foreign drones in the United States.

But it looks like the FCC is finally doing something about DJI’s “front companies,” Superintendent Konrad Iturbe also called them last year. Today’s FCC Eight of them were fined $25,000 each — giving them until Monday, July 20, just 10 calendar days, to answer the FCC’s questions before the agency takes further action.

These companies include Cogito Tech, Fixaxo Technology, Lyno Dynamics, Skyhigh Tech, Spatial Hover, SZ Knowact (the company behind Skyrover), WaveGo Tech, and Xtra Technology. They were all fined because they did not respond to FCC letters initially.

In order to import, sell, and market any device into the United States that uses radio frequencies, you need FCC approval for that device’s radios – but On December 22ndThe FCC has added all foreign drone companies to its covered list, preventing the FCC from issuing licenses to those companies due to presumed national security risks.

Last year, the FCC also It gave itself the ability to retroactively ban products That has already passed its licensing process, even if it only contains components from a banned company. It doesn’t have to be a drone: If your camera has a DJI radio transmitter, the FCC can ban its sale, importation, and marketing in the United States.

This spring, the FCC began asking each of these companies whether they market radio equipment in the United States that belongs to the covered list, and so far none have responded.

EdgeDJI also repeatedly asked last year to confirm whether it had relationships with many of these companies, and reached out to several companies individually without getting answers. DJI will neither confirm nor deny whether the Xtra and Skyrover, for example, are DJI products in disguise. When we tested the Xtra camera against the DJI camerawe found them to be too identical to be considered a “clone”.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also takes credit Edge With part of this investigation:

Xtra is probably the most aggressive ‘front company’ yet. We’ve seen the company promote impactful videos favorably comparing the Xtra Muse to the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, and it is Currently taking $20 deposit For the “Xtra Muse 2 Pro” which appears to be the DJI Pocket 4 Pro in disguise, using the phrase “From Pocket to Pro” among other wink-wink marketing hints.

But DJI may no longer be able to bring this camera to the United States at all. While DJI was able to get the Osmo Pocket 4 Pro through the FCC on November 26, before the ban, and while Xtra was able to get its documents on June 17, no A batch of documents now appears in the FCC’s search engine.

Here’s the message that appears when you click on Xtra’s FCC file:

We’ve been seeing this same message for weeks.

In addition, the FCC may crack down Testing laboratories Which helped get these products through the FCC certification process. The DJI Osmo Pocket 4 and 4 Pro are used by SGS-CTST Standards Technical Services Co., as is WaveGo Tech. On May 11thWe now learn that the FCC has announced its intention to exclude SGS as an authorized testing laboratory, for the following reasons:

SGS Shenzhen is 15% owned by China Standard Science & Technology Group Company Limited, which is itself wholly owned by the National Institute of Standards of China. The U.S. Department of Commerce has determined, based on numerous executive authority sources, that the People’s Republic of China is a foreign adversary.

DJI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the FCC’s actions.