CBP Finds China to Be Country of Origin of Network Taps

The country of origin of Ixia Net Optics Slim Tap network taps is China for government procurement purposes, CBP said in a final determination (here). Network taps allow users to "physically connect a computer or other monitoring device to a network for the purpose of evaluating, monitoring, or checking network issues," the agency said. While there's some assembly of the Ixia network taps in the U.S., "we find that the assembly process is not sufficiently complex or meaningful to render a substantial transformation of the imported components," CBP said. The splitters from China, which enable the actual splitting of the signal and permit the user to access the data on multiple analyzing tools, are what give the product its essence, CBP said. As a result, China is the country of origin for government procurement, it said.