In other news; here in Denmark the government has barred Huawei by decree. Also covering Greenland and Faroe Islands. The situation is a bit different here since as there are multiple competing network operators (at least in mainland DK).
Germany's main network operators are also decling Huawei; not by direct government decree though.
So Huawei seems to be loosing 5G contracts all over the western world.
I don't think EU will trust Huawei at all. Recently my country Netherlands has found backdoors in Huawei equipments https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-huawei-tech/d... . and the biggest telecom in my country just banned huawei in its 5G network. I am sure this will prompt more countries to reject Huawei, especially if one of the bigger countries like Italy, France, or Spain rejects them.
Huawei, and the Chinese industry in general is at the forefront of 5G coming soon, and the West is mad that China can be more advanced than them and scared that all the equipment we use for deploying 5G is from them and, consequently, full of (not backdoors) spying capabilities.
As someone whose country isn't part of five eyes, the hypocrisy makes me quietly laugh.
Huawei is a giant. In phones they had bigger marketshare than Apple. Their chips are nearly on par with Qualcomm. It is naive to believe they are banned for security concerns.
Unofficially they were already excluded as early as about four years ago by shady government visits to telcos implying covert monitoring of infrastructure related tender processes.
This sort of thing no doubt came from US pressure or practice and could be argued to represent direct, covert, cross-border intelligence agency influence on 'free market' capitalism.
I was told the "five eyes" required this, and that no government agency in any of the five eyes economies will confirm or deny what evidence justified it.
The ironies here are supreme: We know within limits, Cisco and Juniper do backdoors. What we don't know, is who reads the backdoors Huawei do, but we can assume its not the US government.
What I am also told, is that the only established proven concern is about state-company governance structures: Huawei were insufficiently transparent about the stock holdings of former Peoples-Army board members and the relationship of the state and the party to the company. I can believe there is a governance issue, but c'mon: we buy oil from countries which want to execute human rights workers, and this is the issue?
I think we all know, this is "belt and road" vs "soft diplomancy" -China is being excluded for economic strategic reasons which have nothing to do with snooping risks.
The Australian Huawei board includes former Australian politicians. Senior ones. Ex-cabinet ones.
I interact with Huawei staff at IETF, and see them frequently at meetings in Asia. I don't view any of them as an existential threat, I think this is bullshit. Many of the Huawei staff at IETF are ex-Cisco, US and Canadian.
This is something that irks me as well. Every time Huawei is mentioned in a conversation, the topic of spying is inevitably brought up, but as far as I know there has been no concrete case found that they did indeed do any kind of spying act through their equipment. If someone can actually link me something that can prove this claim I would be very interested to read it.
Actually in which western countries will Huawei implement 5G networks? I know they are technically allowed some places but no operators dare to hire them.
Recently we had a situation in New Zealand where a large telco announced Huawei would provide their 5G kit for the entire network, then days later had to retract because the national intelligence agency barred the deal [0].
In Europe Huawei have been under constant scrutiny from government spooks and telecom companies for at least 10 years (without news about it). Nothing has never been found and US has never provided any evidence. They are just worried. Some of that worry is reasonable but going all or nothing is not.
For years now, some European network operators (especially if they have government contracts) have silently limited what they buy from Huawei. Base stations and most hardware is OK. Operating services, network control, visitor and location registers, mobile switching centers, network monitoring, and related software dealing with the core network can be bought from others if there is need. Interfaces are standardized and you can buy different components from different vendors. Many EU countries just "happen" to have one or two carriers with strategically shielded core networks.
The real problem with Huawei has been lower quality software relative to competition. If I had to guess, I would say that NSA exploits holes in Huawei software to spy European allies at least as much as Chinese do or as much as Europeans spy each other.
If I could put on my conspiracy hat... Perhaps this is related to Canada's detention of he Huawei executive. Someone put their foot down and said Chinese hardware is spying on us, and perhaps they forced China to give up how.
At it's core, the world absolutely cannot trust China. Because Huawei is a de facto company owned by the Chinese government, it stands to reason that the distrust must be extended to Huawei. The product may be good, but China has very little credibility anymore, and should absolutely not be trusted.
They are currently banned in:
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- Denmark
- Finland
- Greenland - excluded on contract
- India - excluded from 5g trials
- Italy - has prevented a number of telcos from purchasing
equipment - Japan
- Israel - not invited to tender
- Netherlands - dropped from 5g core network
- Norway - excluded based on contract
- Poland
- Spain - replacing Huawei core with Ericsson
- Sweden
- UK - currently removing gear
- United States
- European Union considering defacto ban
- France limitation on equipment amount to defacto ban
- German limits on equipment and capabilities
In addition to allegations of slying from The Netherlands, UK, Australia, US,
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