U.S. trying to prevent Chinese domination of 5G
January 14, 2020 Category IT & Telecom, Weekly
Lenovo’s upcoming Yoga 5G laptop
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has begun accepting public comments on its decision that Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE pose national security risks to the United States. Interested parties have until February 3 to give feedback on a November vote that could ban America’s rural wireless providers from buying telecoms equipment from the companies with money from the U.S. Universal Service Fund worth USD8.5 billion. At the end of the one-month period, the FCC will review the comments and make a final decision. The latest move reflects the U.S. government’s continuing determination to block any Chinese telecom equipment maker from having a role in developing 5G networks in the U.S.
The Trump administration in May put Huawei on a blacklist barring the company from doing business with U.S. tech companies. The Commerce Department has since delayed the start of the ban three times to reduce the repercussions for U.S. companies that have continued to sell to Huawei. The prohibition is now slated to take effect on February 16. The U.S. has also been pressing governments globally to keep Chinese suppliers out of 5G networks because of potential national security threats from China. The FCC said it aimed to strip Chinese equipment from American rural wireless networks to curb Chinese influence in the sector. “Both companies are subject to Chinese laws broadly obligating them to cooperate with any request from the country’s intelligence services and to keep those requests secret,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. “The concern is that hostile foreign actors could use hidden back doors to our networks to spy on us, steal from us, harm us with malware and viruses, or otherwise exploit our networks.” In September, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously to send on to the House legislation that would authorize a USD1 billion fund to help telecoms carriers with fewer than 2 million customers to rip out and replace the Chinese equipment. Huawei has strongly disputed the FCC’s conclusions, urging Pai to reconsider designating Huawei as a national security threat.
The White House pressed the Netherlands to cancel the sale of Dutch chip manufacturing technology to China to prevent it from getting machinery that would allow it to make the world’s fastest microprocessors. Dutch semiconductor equipment company ASML, the global leader in lithography, is waiting for an extension of a government license to sell its most advanced machine to a Chinese customer, the South China Morning Post reports.
The discussion on whether to involve Huawei in European countries’ 5G rollouts has been politicized by some politicians, senior Chinese officials and experts said. They noted that European countries, which have reaped massive benefits from the Chinese market, should make a cautious choice on whether to follow unreasonable U.S. bullying of the Chinese firm or cooperate and achieve win-win results with China in the coming era. A right decision will not only get European countries a ride on the fast track of future technology development, but also herald a new era for China-EU cooperation that brings tangible benefits for both sides, they said, as reported by the Global Times.
China’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Liu Xiaoming said a British ban on Huawei would leave the nation’s technological development “trailing far behind” the competition and severely delay Britain’s transition from 4G to 5G networks. He also said there is no evidence to support claims that Huawei poses a cybersecurity threat. “Fabricating ‘Huawei risk’ in the name of national security is tantamount to giving a dog a bad name to hang him,” Liu said. “Doing so will only hamper normal cooperation between countries, and in the end, those who intend to scare others would lift the stone only to drop it on their own feet.”
Cristiano Amon, President of U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm, estimates that 200 million 5G smartphones will be shipped in 2020. Forty-five operators now have 5G commercially deployed, while 340 operators are investing in 5G globally. We expect that the number will go up to 1 billion connections by 2023; two years faster than what it took for 4G to get to 1 billion,” Amon said. Chinese companies continue innovating in the 5G sector. In partnership with Qualcomm, Lenovo unveiled the world’s first 5G personal computer, the Yoga 5G, which will be available in the spring for USD1,499. “The 5G PC is now a reality, and that will define the future of productivity,” said Amon. 5G is “getting to lower price points so that we can scale”, he said, adding that the market is “moving toward 5G smartphones on a global scale”. 5G will also bring further developments in the autonomous driving industry by allowing C-V2X, which enables vehicles to communicate with each other and the environment around them, to share the 5.9 GHz band, the South China Morning Post and the China Daily report.
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