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Vodafone CEO Says Banning Huawei Could Set Europe's 5G Rollout Back Another Two Years (cnbc.com)
The CEO of Vodafone, the world's second-largest mobile operator, warned excluding Huawei from Europe's 5G networks could be "hugely disruptive" to national infrastructure and consumers. CEO Nick Read said that it would be "very very expensive" for operators and consumers if companies were forced to swap their Huawei equipment in favor of competitors', adding it would delay Europe's 5G rollout by "probably two years." CNBC reports: Speaking at a press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday, Vodafone CEO Nick Read said banning Huawei from providing 5G infrastructure in Europe would hamper competition in the supply chain. China's Huawei, Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson are the three biggest providers of telecommunications equipment in the world, accounting for more than half of revenues in the market, according to research firm Dell'Oro Group. "If we concentrate it down to two players I think that's an unhealthy position not just for us as an industry but also for national infrastructure in the country," Read said.
"It structurally disadvantages Europe," he said "Of course the U.S. don't have that problem because they don't put Huawei equipment in." Vodafone's Read said governments need to take a "fact-based" approach to assessing security concerns with Huawei, adding he will not be meeting with any U.S. officials in Barcelona this week. "I would at this stage prefer to be working with governments and securities on a national basis and making sure we have a fact-based conversation," he said. Vodafone's Read said there is "high competition" among the three equipment providers but added Huawei has had "leading technology." In a roundtable with media on Sunday in Barcelona, Huawei's rotating chairman Guo Ping claimed the company is 12 months ahead of its competitors when it comes to 5G technology. Huawei has been left out of the U.S. market with officials citing security concerns that its technology could enable spying from the Chinese government, accusations Huawei denies. The U.S., the UK and Germany are weighing possible bans on Huawei's 5G equipment citing security risks.
"It structurally disadvantages Europe," he said "Of course the U.S. don't have that problem because they don't put Huawei equipment in." Vodafone's Read said governments need to take a "fact-based" approach to assessing security concerns with Huawei, adding he will not be meeting with any U.S. officials in Barcelona this week. "I would at this stage prefer to be working with governments and securities on a national basis and making sure we have a fact-based conversation," he said. Vodafone's Read said there is "high competition" among the three equipment providers but added Huawei has had "leading technology." In a roundtable with media on Sunday in Barcelona, Huawei's rotating chairman Guo Ping claimed the company is 12 months ahead of its competitors when it comes to 5G technology. Huawei has been left out of the U.S. market with officials citing security concerns that its technology could enable spying from the Chinese government, accusations Huawei denies. The U.S., the UK and Germany are weighing possible bans on Huawei's 5G equipment citing security risks.
Seriously, this is less disruptive than having backdoors in it. Far far better for Europe to buy European 5G.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't know if Huawei can be trusted.
I do know that anyone mistrusting Huawei that still trusts Cisco is naive.
I don't know if this warning will get to anyone in time, or if it will be heeded.
I do know this post will be aggressively attacked by sock puppet moderation and astro-turfing trolls.
Like seriously? Does it? Do you need that much faster speed(that you're probably not going to get) and limited bandwidth(10GB per month for $100?! sign me in!), on your mobile phone?
I'd argue most people just use their data to access their social media or other crap instead of doing anything productive with that mobile bandwidth and anyone smart enough use wifi anyway. So they can afford to wait 2 extra years, let more phones be released that are compatible with it first.
Everyone is so concerned! I mean literally hundreds of millions of people cannot live without 5G Internet. Oh, wait, most find 3G quite sufficient for their needs. It's not like you need to watch high bitrate HDR 4K movies on your cell phone or send gigabytes of data daily. // b.
or the dog gets it.
Also, while I'll admit I don't know if Huawei really is a problem or not, I find it hard to believe they couldn't just buy from the same companies the US is getting it's equipment from.
Then again, it's all made in China anyway, so does it matter?
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Just look at all those 'vulnerabilities' found in 4g/5g network protocols that allow spying, denial of service, or eavesdropping. Those aren't accidents in this day and age, those are government sponsored provisions to help their intelligence apparatuses. Both the Chinese and Western powers want them, the only different is under whose control they want them to be.
At this point in time what is needed is unpatented technology with openly documented reference hardware and feature sets which can be audited using standardized unit testing. Once we have that we can come back to a discussion on which company is less secure, because we will have empirical evidence to back it up. Until then it's all political masturbation.
So much for free market.
Huawei will probably just work around the restrictions by licensing another name like Audio Technics, AWA, BOSCH, or TEAC to brand their equipment to sell into affected countries.
Consider Sweden and Finland. Look at what Poland is considering. What Taiwan the real China is doing.
Stop supporting Communist China.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If they suspect Huwaii isn't secure, then it's irrelevant how many years it sets them back.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You will never matter. Germany still does, sorry faggot.
Or something like that.
Delay. Huawei is completely suspect and China is hostile as fuck. Thereâ(TM)s a reason why China and Russia are segregating off into their own internet. Network war to harm our infrastructure and economy is eminent. We would be fools to use huawei products. We know what weâ(TM)ve done to other nations when we sell them gear. China certainly does the same
So the CEO of a big company that intends to use Huawei gear instead of spending the money on developing their own/waiting for more trustworthy but possibly more exepnsive alternatives from other places is whining that "it will take more time"? How about worrying about your customers and their information privacy before you worry about your wallet - f*ck you Vodafone.
You are against anything China. Cisco has the worst and most obvious backdoors, they are practically front doors. You would rather stay 2 years behind and have other backdoors instead? Even though all the reviews have found nothing so far. Germany and the UK didn't seem impressed with your propaganda and are not banning China for dubious reasons.
American equipment is easily the least trustworthy.
But it's not for real. Germany and the UK were not impressed with America's 'evidence'. NSA are just worried it will be harder for them to put their backdoors in now if it's made in China. Much harder to intercept in shipping.
Vodaphone should attend the MWC and find out how many other vendors can fill their needs.
...moving very slowly and winning footraces with smug satisfaction.
You wouldn't be man enough to do it, fairy.
LTE is fast enough for 99.9% of use cases.
2 years does not seem a particularly long time.
That's all I've got to say.
Why not just steal their tech and launch a homegrown version? It's not like the Chinese don't steal everyone's tech with government sponsorship. What goes around comes around.
It's a small price to pay.
It's a small price to pay.
It's a small price to pay.
China is not a country where citizens can enjoy freedom of expression, freedom of religion, political freedoms, etc. The Uighurs are actively suppressed and a million of them are held in concentration camps. There is good reason as why equipment from China should not be trusted. Of course, there is not much reason to trust critical and infrastructure equipment from any non-free country with nuclear weapons. But I mistrust U.S.-made equipment less than what comes out of the People's Republic, or Russia. I would certainly trust EU-made stuff more. Except censorship-inducing Articles 11 and 13 of the proposed update to the EU Copyright Directive, pushed by MEP Axel Voss.
Just go straight to whoever Huawei stole it from in the first place.
Even in the States data has become less available and more expensive. For example AT&T in my area no longer offers unlimited data, I find it hard to belive we are just going to get a X 100 data increase anyway.
This is all marketing drivel.
Too bad Vodafone,
You shouldn't have tried to bring Chinese control into Europe in the first place. Don't worry, your competition will step up and take your market share.
Ever wonder why people consider you a nutcase? This isn't about America. It isn't about Apple, it's about Europe and it's about Huawei, a provider of known spyware. There must be some reason that Huawei is going to hold up 5G rollout.
People also seem to have forgotten (or not know about) Huawei's code theft from Cisco:
* https://blogs.cisco.com/news/huawei-and-ciscos-source-code-correcting-the-record
This whole things smells fishy. For one, any country that allows Huawei to build the 5G shit is allowing a foreign government to have control of their telecommunications infrastructure which just sounds bad regardless - even if it were Canada or the US, it'd still seem like a bad idea.
The fact that China is really pushing so hard makes it seem (at least to me) that they are lowballing on the offer and taking a financial hit... to me, because their payoff is getting access to an entire country's telecommunication system... Which again, sounds like something you wouldn't want a foreign country to be able to easily tap into...
Huawei is disruptive in terms of changing the network equipment landscape in terms of business operations.
Previously, network equipment manufacturers (ie ericsson) and network operator/carriers (ie vodafone) will work together to bring a new technology forward, such as 2G to 3G transition. They set a launch date years out and worked together for the specs.
Due to market dynamics and perhaps the impact of global financial meltdown, network planning and deployment was delayed. Except Huawei went ahead to deploy the network equipment in EU without significant customers. By the time Huawei is ready, it caught all other manufacturers off guard as they are deployed everywhere. Carriers had to pick either 1) to wait for the EU network equipment manufacturers to finish and deploy, or 2) use the already deployed Huawei networks. Most smaller network carriers just used Huawei's.
Key points to identify here that benefits Huawei is that Huawei already have huge deployment in China, so they are not as financial constrained than EU equipment manufacturers. 2) Because of the financial backing of business operation in China, and perhaps Chinese government, Huawei can invest in network deployment in EU without significant customer to start.
One data point I've heard is that Huawei reimburse some carriers phones to attract the carriers. Imagine you are carrier and you sell network service. Previous you had to buy phones, but now you get discounted phones you can sell at whatever price fit your business model. That's a significant advantage over other equipment manufacturers.
Last thing I want to point out regarding technology. Network equipment manufacturers are just system integrator that buys components from others. Most smaller component manufacturers just pick a network equipment manufacturers' specs and customize to their needs. The main reason is that components are developed during the development of the specs. There's simply not enough resources to design one solution that fits all. Huawei changed the game here by setting the spec/platform almost on day one. The advantages includes sooner product maturity, easy to second source, and many others. These put extensive pressure on the component manufacturers, but the outcome is that Huawei solutions are almost guaranteed to arrive sooner than any competitors.
America tries and fails to get the UK and Germany to block Huawei, but somehow it's now not about America. Hahaha
Their market share is going up Chile apple and Samsung both go down....
Silly little troll get you facts straight.
Just use the front door. America can just compel you to give them the key.
Much safer to use Huawei.
much less than 12 months you say...
How many governments has China helped overthrow because they disagreed with the politics of the country. Start with South America and work your way around the globe. Is it even remotely close to the 'political freedom loving' Americans?
You still need to test for compatibility with the other products even when yours is far superior. Will a shitty nokia work properly with your new 5g base station? Grab some and test.