Intelligence agencies across the English-speaking world are in widespread agreement about the race to roll out next-generation mobile networks. Top officials from Australia, the UK, Canada and the United States have all said recently that using Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s equipment poses a national security threat. For service providers in those countries, going along with that assessment comes with a catch. There is no good alternative.
The United States, for its part, offers no competitive fifth-generation wireless network equipment. Europe’s Nokia and Ericsson, meanwhile, are both struggling to catch up to Huawei. South Korea’s Samsung is investing heavily in the area but has come to the party late. Thanks in part to massive government subsidies, Huawei has been able to offer equipment and services at a fraction of the price of its competitors. It has grown exponentially in the process to leapfrog Nokia and Ericsson and become the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier by far. This is despite the fact that they have long been almost entirely cut out of the US market. read more on our Forum