Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Drops Plans To Sell Huawei Phones Due To US Government Pressure (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg reports that Verizon has dropped all plans to sell phones by Chinese manufacturer Huawei due to pressure from the U.S. government. The decision comes after AT&T walked away from a deal earlier this month to sell Huawei smartphones in the U.S. Bloomberg: Huawei devices still work on both companies' networks, but direct sales would've allowed them to reach more consumers than they can through third parties. The government's renewed concern about Chinese spying is creating a potential roadblock in the race between Verizon and AT&T to offer 5G, the next generation of super-fast mobile service. Huawei is pushing to be among the first to offer 5G-capable phone, but the device may be considered off-limits to U.S. carriers who are beginning to offer the next-generation service this year in a few cities. U.S. security agencies and some lawmakers fear that 5G phones made by companies that may have close ties to the Chinese government could pose a security risk.
uhh.... bingo.
china.
and not just 'made in china', either. some of the component suppliers and manufacturers are at least partially-owned by the chinese government.
i wonder if the feds still by thinkpads? lenovo is also partially-owned by the chinese government.
preloaded with Chinese spyware you can't delete? Good old American NSA spyware is good enough for me!
Wouldn't it be better to make ALL cellphones more secure, by law, and protect consumers from all spying, than to just block specific countries from selling phones because of spying? Or is that a silly question?
I don't trust rich people here to protect my safety and security, any more than I trust the government of China.
....free market and Trump's promises to remove regulations.
Trump making America Great Again?
The Chinese are probably less interested in me (as a non-entity wrt their politics) than the USA, who seem interested in fucking up as many people as possible.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
They are all watching, and every modern device is compromised.. Choose your poison.
Personally, i trust the Chinese devices more than US phones. I'm not a target for the Chinese, but i am for our own government, simply due to my existence..
... over capitalism. How odd. The American government knows full well that for all of the technology they have, disassembly of the devices reveals multinational components -- very few of which are American made.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
These US folks are becoming experts in wasting time. Putin put it correctly: -
"Dogs bark but the caravan goes on."
We'll get them online. Enough said.
US companies are blocked from the Chinese market over spying fears. China applies pressure and US companies find they are blocked from the Asian market, 60% of the worlds population, and the only major market that has real growth potential.
My mom got a mobile hotspot from Verizon years ago and I groaned when I saw it was made by Huawei. Even if you don't think they're siphoning data, their devices are notorious for abysmal security.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I thought that this was the country of freedom!
What made America great was the ability to buy cheap goods from abroad. As soon at phones cost three times what they do, people will cut back on them.
If they don't believe the phones are secure and are telling carriers not to sell them, why not just go all the way and ban their importation and operation on US networks as a national security matter?
Is a dick move, but understable, to ban Huawei equipment (cellphones, telecom Gear, servers, storage, datacom and SW) for the goverment at all levels (federal, state, local).
Is and even dickier move (and not undestable) to ban private enterprises to use the network-side kit.
But is the dickiest move, and the least understable one, to ban the direct sale of cellphones by carriers.
Problem #1: Is the public that is the most harmed, as huawei phones are decent phones at decent prices, and joe sixpack could not care less that the chinese spies discover that he is galavanting. Less choices=less competition.
Problem #2: It can inspire retaliatory measures by the chinese. And rightly so, may I add.
Problem #3: Is probably ilegal by treaties like the ones signed in the WTO, so the government exposes itself to a complaint and losing face.
Problem #4: When the USoA (being this administration or another one in the future) start to (re)negotiate trade deals, the potential partners will see this precedent and go Hummmm!
Disclosure: I worked for Huawei in Venezuela on the telco side for a year, starting around 2007. At that time there was no server/storage/sw side. I later did technical training on Storage/Server/Cloud for them, but was not in their payroll.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
To be honest, at work on a regular basis I hear about how the race is to 5G. First off, to hell with 'XG'. The US, comparing land mass, has great LTE coverage, however first, we don't implement IMS fully (at all), and even only Voice over LTE is hit or miss.
As for American culture, SMS is huge, however *ALL* networks are still dependent on SMS over Circuit Switched network, whereas China Mobile is the only mass market provider to provide SMS over IMS. Granted, there's really no place for SMS in this world anymore, as data is all, and we really should switch to some unified application, however https://xkcd.com/927/ holds true. With my Korean friends and coworkers its Kakao, however in the US, its Google Hangouts, iMessage, and whatever else.
In the end? Fuck off with your UE complaints for a bit, lets actually develop a real network. Truly think about it, secure it, implement your micro-cells and grow. I'm tired of this anti-global, anti-whatever-the-fuck bullshit that technology has become. We're all fucking geeks. We all *should* care about the future. Stop with the partisan bullshit, and put your brain where your mouth is. Give me one, just one fucking discussion on /. that doesn't refer to a US party post-dice, and I'll fucking be happy (As a US citizen).
If all of the intelligent people here could collectively get their political heads out of their asses, perhaps we could change the world. I've been here since the late 90s, and the climate has changed significantly. Lets actually do something good.
So we can't get Huawei phones but I'm sure a large part of the mobile infrastructure is Huawei tech.
Heck I'm up in Canada and we built up 4G Huawei network to support our fleet tracking system and I know 90% of the cell towers in this area are all "Made in China"
I don't care about Chinese and Russian spying or potential spying anymore. Our country has a whole lot more problems than that. We cannot even take care of our most vulnerable citizens and we have the highest incarceration rate in the western world. At this point it's just a distraction from domestic problems.
One might expect to be detained at LAX for carrying a Huawei phone.
I hate China, Huawei, Spies, Verizon, government intervention, and facisim. Who do I root for, here? :-)
Do I really have to point out, all the other phones, made by everyone.. the parts in those phones are from China too? I mean, if the Chinese wanna slip in an AMT-like backdoor into some chips, we're screwed. This is just silly protectionism in the name of national security when it makes no fricken difference whatsoever in regards to national security.
around in the purchases of idiots trying to infect the rest of us and siphon our info too.
Verizon and AT&T will sell other phones that were still made in China, but that have Americanized names.
Clearly these phones cannot contain spyware.
Wa-Way, the Chinese state company rose from the IP theft and actual destruction of Nortel Networks. Sure Nortel management was stupid and didn't heed warnings of security people, but lets not forget the entire foundation of the company is illegitimate.
Also, if Wa-Way really wants to play in the American market, lets see their source code, you know, LIKE THEY DEMAND FROM US.
I have no idea what deals the telecom providers in Belgium, where I live, have. I just know that I can buy any phone unlocked as requested by law. I can just go to any electronics store and byt any phone or buy one in China or wherever and use it with any of the telecom operators.
And all that without roaming costs inside Europe and they still make a lot of monies.
Yes, there are many people who buy their phone with their plan, but even then you could use that phone for whatever you desire. e.g. I buy a Samsung with a plan at X amount. I use the simcard in my iPhone and give the Samsung to my (imaginary) wife with another provider or to my sister who lives in another country> It will obviously not exclude me from payments, but I am free to use it as I please.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.