US politicians pressure AT&T to cut ties with China's Huawei in 5G development
U.S. political figures are reportedly escalating their pressure on AT&T to distance itself from Chinese companies, including work on 5G standards with Huawei.
Politicians have expressed national security concerns, two congressional aides told Reuters. Huawei has ties to the authoritarian Chinese government, and -- in theory -- its involvement in 5G could be used to make it easier for China to infiltrate foreign networks. At the same time the company is one of the world's biggest smartphone makers, making it difficult to ignore in the pursuit of global standards.
AT&T has refused to comment, beyond saying it has yet to make decisions on 5G equipment suppliers.
Earlier in January, AT&T put a halt to plans to offer Huawei phones after some members of Congress lobbied against the idea with regulators, according to Reuters sources. Politicans are also said to be agitating against Huawei phones being sold through AT&T's Cricket division, and calling on AT&T to oppose China Mobile entering the U.S. carrier market.
Two Republican representatives, Michael Conaway and Liz Cheney, introduced a bill earlier this week that would block the U.S. government from involvement with either Huawei or a fellow Chinese company, ZTE. AT&T does sell ZTE phones.
AT&T is expected to launch its first 5G service in 12 cities by the end of 2018. Sprint and T-Mobile should go live in 2019 and 2020.
In November rumors suggested that Apple is collaborating with Intel on a 5G modem for future iPhones, presumably as a way of distancing itself from legal adversary Qualcomm. Future iPhones might even build that modem into a system-on-chip, manufactured at Intel facilities.
Politicians have expressed national security concerns, two congressional aides told Reuters. Huawei has ties to the authoritarian Chinese government, and -- in theory -- its involvement in 5G could be used to make it easier for China to infiltrate foreign networks. At the same time the company is one of the world's biggest smartphone makers, making it difficult to ignore in the pursuit of global standards.
AT&T has refused to comment, beyond saying it has yet to make decisions on 5G equipment suppliers.
Earlier in January, AT&T put a halt to plans to offer Huawei phones after some members of Congress lobbied against the idea with regulators, according to Reuters sources. Politicans are also said to be agitating against Huawei phones being sold through AT&T's Cricket division, and calling on AT&T to oppose China Mobile entering the U.S. carrier market.
Two Republican representatives, Michael Conaway and Liz Cheney, introduced a bill earlier this week that would block the U.S. government from involvement with either Huawei or a fellow Chinese company, ZTE. AT&T does sell ZTE phones.
AT&T is expected to launch its first 5G service in 12 cities by the end of 2018. Sprint and T-Mobile should go live in 2019 and 2020.
In November rumors suggested that Apple is collaborating with Intel on a 5G modem for future iPhones, presumably as a way of distancing itself from legal adversary Qualcomm. Future iPhones might even build that modem into a system-on-chip, manufactured at Intel facilities.
Comments
Unsurprisingly hypocritical. We made MS Windows a global standard with backdoors.
I'm sure Apple and Google have been handed down gag orders for backdoors as well.
If we say that secret national security concerns aren’t legit here, then we need to say it everywhere the govt cites it, including the undisclosed evidence that russia colluded (proof was never given to the public, just a “trust us” claim). So where do we draw the line?
Keep scummy thieves like Huawei off the US.
Worse in fact.
Apple is only involved in the handset business. Huawei has divisions in far more communications areas including submarine communications deployment.
If being found to have back doors would destroy Apple's reputation, what would it do to Huawei? Far more damage. Right into its core business.
This US 'fear' has been going on for years now without any evidence to back it up.
Huawei has denied everything that it has been singled out for. The US should put something tangible on the table or things will start to stink of protectionism and it might not be long before they get called out or China starts to take its own measures.
AT&T already does business with Huawei in places like Mexico and Huawei already does massive business in most of the rest of the world, including the UK. In that case the UK government has a special unit with deep access to Huawei equipment.
Then the US government's NSA gets found out for doing exactly what it's campaigning to protect against (operation Shotgiant). Oh dear, there's egg on your face if ever there was.
It is far too late to do anything about Samsung. They are already in.
If the Huawei threat were so great they would get in anyway, compromising other people's equipment to do so.
The current situation has a ring of paranoia and protectionism to it and the only way to set things straight is by supporting the claims with something tangible.
Why stop a deal on handsets through a carrier if the same handsets are green lighted for sale through US retail channels? The exact same hardware.
Of course, carrier support offers some advantages to customers and given the particularities of the US market, Huawei stood to ship a lot of phones through that channel.
1) Many of the underlying communication systems rely on dual-use technology, and so regulated under the EAR (US export control list from a non-military wing of the feds). Huawei (and ZTE, and others) contracts with the PLA for same types of communication technologies. So a US firm working together with Huawei could aid a foreign military power and violate the EAR. AT&T doesn't want to do that, and congressional folks are implicitly threatening this (this is the pressure they're applying to AT&T).
2) There have been strong concerns for close to two decades that many Chinese firms are funded (run?) indirectly by the PLA (People's Liberation Army). The PLA is very wealthy and powerful (duh) so not a huge stretch of the imagination given China's governing structure. There isn't direct [public] evidence making this connection but the scuttlebutt is that intelligence agencies from multiple countries strongly believe this to be the case. Insert "CIA guarantees there are WMD in Iraq" joke here.
If you're a US business you do not ever want to violate export controls, because people go to jail for doing that (google "export control jail" for a fun 45 minutes of reading) and there isn't the same kind of corporate immunity shielding employees for violating export controls like there are for other white-collar crimes. So the AT&T execs got a threatening call from congress and they knew to take it personally.
From the protectionist perspective, articles like this piece (in Spanish) are starting to pop up.
The title is indicative of the content:
"The march [into the US] of Chinese giant Huawei threatens the rule of Apple in the US"
http://www.pulso.cl/empresas-mercados/huawei-avance-del-gigante-chino-amenaza-reinado-apple-eeuu/
It suggests that Apple and Cisco stand to benefit from the current situation as a result of the government thwarting Huawei's entry into the US market.
It draws parallels with the presence of Huawei in Chile where its marketshare went from 3% to 15% in two years.
There's plenty of evidence. Including from other countries around the world. Read/look up if you're interested to learn more.
That's a laughable title and premise. Cheap knockoff brands like Huawei are not a threat to Apple's business at the high-end in the US. Maybe to Samsung and the other knockoffs, but not to the name brand original. Huawei's brand just isn't strong enough. We don't even know how to pronounce it, let only covet it. A KFC phone isn't going to cut it here:
Just more wishful thinking on your part.
See above.