Currently, countries around the world are installing infrastructure and getting ready to launch 5g networking capabilities. The technology will lead to increased technological capabilities within autonomous vehicles, AI and cloud computing (FT, 2020). However, the process of installing 5g has not been without issues. A controversial issue has been related to the hardware providers, where the Chinese company Huawei, has seen decrease in demand due to privacy concerns (Computerweekly, 2020)
Scrutiny of Chinese companies related to security and privacy concerns have been around for some time. In 2018 Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada and subsequently extradited to the U.S. due to charges on fraud (Aljazeera, 2018). In 2020 she was indicted on charges of trade secret theft (Wikipedia, 2020). Although, this event was not directly tied to the area of 5g within Huawei, there are serious concerns of the integrity of the company given the amount of information the Chinese government could possibly have access to through the company and this technology. Due to this issue, a number of countries have decided to ban Huawei from installing 5g capability. These include among others the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (Statista, 2020).
There are however a number of countries who have not banned Huawei. For example, the Norwegian government has opened up for the company to implement 5g technology, with the Danish government also showing interest to do the same (Computerweekly, 2020). Furthermore, the German government has stated that ‘Regardless of politics, we should never allow dependence on one provider’, which shows that they are willing to collaborate with the Chinese giant (Reuters, 2020).
Nevertheless, the next years will show if Huawei is able to create a market share in the western world for their 5g technology given the security and privacy concerns.
References:
Aljazeera.com. (2018). ‘Why are countries banning Huawei’. Viewed on October 5, 2020 from:
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2018/12/7/why-are-countries-banning-huawei
Computerweekly.com. (2020). Norway leaved door open to Huawei. Viewed on October 5, 2020 from:
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252489795/Norway-leaves-door-open-to-Huawei
FT.com. (2020). ‘Huawei/trade war: dialling it back’. Viewed on October 5, 2020 from: https://www.ft.com/content/c5cf8f38-527d-45f0-b74d-66c4a5209df6?shareType=nongift
Reuters.com. (2020). ‘Deutsche Telekom diversifies suppliers ‘regardless of politics’. Viewed on October 5, 2020 from:
Statista.com. (2020).’Which countries have banned Huawei?’. Viewed on October 5, 2020 from:
Wikipedia.org. (2020). ‘Meng Wanzhou’. Viewed on October 5, 2020 from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Wanzhou
