Skip to main content

Huawei on the defensive as threat of UK 5G exclusion hovers


As the UK government considers making a U-turn on its decision to permit Huawei a limited role as a supplier for the country’s 5G infrastructure, the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant is launching a full-throttle media campaign to bolster its reputation.
In January, the UK government gave Huawei the green light to supply up to 35 per cent of the 5G Radio Access Network: the peripheral, non security-critical parts of the infrastructure. The decision attracted an angry response from both the Trump White House and also from Tory backbenchers closer to home, who continue to threaten a rebellion against Huawei’s inclusion and favour the company’s equipment being entirely removed from UK infrastructure by 2023.
Allegations made against Huawei by US authorities include that the company could act as a clandestine earpiece for the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei has repeatedly rejected these accusations.
The Trump administration recently introduced additional restrictions against Huawei, effectively preventing the company from using technology with US origins. Subsequently, the UK government commissioned an urgent National Cyber Security Centre review, which may conclude that Huawei is no longer in a position to provide equipment for UK mobile operators, in turn paving the way for the government to make a U-turn on January’s decision.
With this ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over Huawei’s future in the UK, the company is initiating a massive media campaign to reject the perception that it is a national security risk. Instead, it aim to promote its 20-year-long history in the UK and its “commitment” to the country.
Huawei promised to bring “fast, reliable mobile and full-fibre broadband networks to every part of the country” in an open letter splashed as full-page advertisements in UK newspapers.
“Huawei grew up in the UK. We’ve been here for 20 years and were integral in building the 3G and 4G networks we all use every day,” Huawei VP Victor Zhang said in a statement. “Today’s letter underlines Huawei’s ongoing commitment to improving connectivity for everyone in the UK. As a private company, 100 per cent owned by employees, our priority has been to help mobile and broadband companies build a better-connected UK.”
“Britain needs the best possible technologies, more choice, innovation and more suppliers, all of which means more secure and more resilient networks. This is fundamental to achieving the government’s gigabit broadband target by 2025. This is our commitment to the UK.”
The letter also boasts of Huawei’s role in job creation, investment in R&D and training engineers.
Speaking to reporters today, Zhang said he hoped the commitment would inform Britons that Huawei is security conscious, has excellent technology and cares about the UK, as well as dispelling some myths about the company. He said he believed the government would take an “evidence-based approach” when reviewing Huawei’s position.
Zhang repeatedly insisted that it is too early to draw any conclusions about the impact of the new US restrictions on Huawei’s future in the UK’s 5G rollout: “We strongly oppose the amendment made by the US Department of Commerce […] this will definitely damage the global supply chain of the semiconductor industry, which lots of industries rely on. It is too early to [make] conclusions about the impact, so we are working closely with our partners and suppliers to take a full and comprehensive examination of these new rules.”
However, Zhang added that Huawei had already survived one blow from the US government, after being added to the ‘Entity List’ last year.
Sign up to the E&T News e-mail to get great stories like this delivered to your inbox every day.

Originally published at https://eandt.theiet.org on June 8, 2020.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Google can now help you figure out that song stuck in your head - all you have to do is hum (or whistle) into your phone

  Google just launched its “hum to search” feature, which allows users to hum, whistle, or sing for 10–15 seconds in order to identify a song. The feature currently works in 20 languages, and Google hopes to add more. Google has finally launched the perfect feature for when a song is stuck in your head but you don’t know any of the words. “Hum to search” launched today on both the Google app for iOS and Android, according to Google’s blog, The Keyword. Users can also whistle or sing directly into the mic to identify a song. The technology works like this: the user can hum (whistle, or sing) for 10–15 seconds, and then Google’s technology takes the song’s melody and turns it into a numbers-based sequence. From there, the sequence can be used to “identify songs based on a variety of sources, including humans singing, whistling or humming, as well as studio recordings,” according to Google’s announcement. The sequence also strips away any other outside noise, like accompanying instru...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ransomware's Dangerous New Trick Is Double-Encrypting Your Data

  Ransomware groups have always taken a more-is-more approach . If a victim pays a ransom and then goes back to business as usual-hit them again. Or don’t just encrypt a target’s systems; steal their data first, so you can threaten to leak it if they don’t pay up. The latest escalation? Ransomware hackers who encrypt a victim’s data twice at the same time. Double-encryption attacks have happened before, usually stemming from two separate ransomware gangs compromising the same victim at the same time. But antivirus company Emsisoft says it is aware of dozens of incidents in which the same actor or group intentionally layers two types of ransomware on top of each other. “The groups are constantly trying to work out which strategies are best , which net them the most money for the least amount of effort,” says Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow. “So in this approach you have a single actor deploying two types of ransomware. The victim decrypts their data and discovers it’s not act...
Post a Comment
Read more

WhatsApp Users Exchanged Over 100 Billion Messages on New Year’s Eve, A New Record

WhatsApp is one of the most widely used communication apps on the planet and as such, clocks an insane number of messages and media exchanges on a daily basis. But the New Year's Eve broke a record that has been standing since WhatsApp's debut a decade ago. WhatsApp has revealed that users exchanged over 100 billion messages on New Year's eve. And out of that number, more than 20 billion messages were shared by Indian users alone. Moreover, around 12 billion out of the 100 billion+ messages shared on the platform were images. WhatsApp wrote in a press release that over 100 billion messages were shared globally on December 31 in the 24-hour duration leading up to the midnight of New Year's Eve. This is a record-breaking volume and is the highest number of messages exchanged in a single day ever since WhatsApp kicked off its services ten years ago. Out of those 100 billion+ messages shared on New Year's eve, WhatsApp says over 12 billion were images. Meanwhile...
Post a Comment
Read more