WASHINGTON—AT&T Inc Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said on March 20 that China’s Huawei Technologies is making it very difficult for European carriers to drop the company from its supply chain for next-generation 5G wireless service.
“If you have deployed Huawei as your 4G network, Huawei is not allowing interoperability to 5G—meaning if you are 4G, you are stuck with Huawei for 5G,” said Stephenson at a speech in Washington. “When the Europeans say we got a problem—that’s their problem. They really don’t have an option to go to somebody else.”
The United States has been pressuring other countries to drop Huawei from their networks. Stephenson said the U.S. government could do a better job explaining the security risks of Huawei. “The biggest risk is not that the Chinese government might listen in on our conversations or mine our data if we use their equipment,” Stephenson said.
Within a decade, 5G will drive all U.S. factories, utilities, refineries, traffic management and help underpin autonomous vehicles. “If that much of infrastructure will be attached to this kind of technology, do we want to be cautious about who is the underlying company behind that technology? We damn well better be,” Stephenson said.
Huawei did not respond to a request for comment March 20.
Huawei has grown rapidly to become the world’s biggest maker of telecom equipment and is embedded in the mobile networks and 5G plans of many European operators. It denies that its technology represents a security risk.
In the United States, 5G networks will largely be built by Nordic equipment makers Ericsson and Nokia, and Strayer said there were safer alternatives to Huawei.
Huawei Background
Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested by Canadian authorities at an airport in Vancouver in December 2018 on behalf of the United States, which seeks to prosecute her on charges related to fraud.
Meng will remain on bail, subject to her existing conditions while court proceedings are underway. Canadian authorities set the next hearing for May 8, which is when the court will hear an outline of how the extradition proceedings will move forward.
In a separate 10-count indictment, U.S. prosecutors accuse Huawei of stealing trade secrets, committing wire fraud, laundering money, and obstructing justice. In the indictment, prosecutors allege that Huawei managers encouraged stealing competitors’ technology, including the designs of a T-Mobile robot named “Tappy.”
Speaking at a press conference where the charges against Huawei and Meng were unsealed, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration is taking a tougher stance against those who violate trade sanctions.
“For years, Chinese firms have broken our export laws and undermined sanctions, often using U.S. financial systems to facilitate their illegal activities,” Ross said. “This will end.”
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