◼ BUSINESS Bloomberg Businessweek April 20, 202015Morethana yearago,theU.S.askeditsalliesto
banequipmentmanufacturedbyChina’sHuawei
TechnologiesCo.becauseofAmericanconcerns
aboutitstiestotheChineseCommunistParty.But
Europeangovernmentsarestillpushingback,say-
ingthere’sa safewaytoworkwiththeworld’sbig-
gestcommunicationsequipmentsupplier.
Italy and Germanyare reinforcingsecurity
testingandapprovalsfornewequipmenttoallay
fearsthatBeijingcoulduseHuaweisystemsfor
intellectual-property theft, spying, or sabotage.
But neither country has banned Huawei gear, nor
has France. And the U.K. has taken a different tack,
effectively capping the Shenzhen-based vendor’s
market share and excluding it from the most sensi-
tive parts of its national mobile networks.
No one, however, has yet figured out what to do
about Huawei’s role in the patchwork of smaller pri-
vate communication networks that underpin every-
thing from oilfields and airports to sea terminals and
municipal governments, or how best to protect crit-
ical operations run over national networks. Britain’s
emergency services network, run by BT Group Plc,
is set to rely on antennas from Huawei, as well as
those from Finland’s Nokia Oyj, to connect police,
health, and fire services.
Many owners of these services want to keep
Huawei—which has consistently denied its equip-
ment poses a security risk—as a supplier when they
upgrade to 5G, the next generation of wireless com-
munications. But a lack of concrete guidance has
left them wondering whether they’ll need to rip
out Huawei gear later if they move ahead. “There
are a series of subnetworks in this country which
are clearly critical, but which I’m not sure we have
treated with the seriousness that they deserve,”
says Bob Seely, one of a group of lawmakers from
the U.K.’s governing Conservative Party trying to
persuade Prime Minister Boris Johnson to exclude
Huawei from 5G. “It seems to me common sensethat you would not have a high-risk vendor in a crit-
ical emergency services network.”
Yet for the bulk of its wireless networks, Europe’s
only practicable alternatives to Huawei are Sweden’s
Ericsson AB and Nokia. So removing the Chinese
company—the biggest player in the market—could
create a potentially dangerous duopoly. A decade-
long research and marketing effort has made Huawei
the region’s most critical provider of antennas,
switches, fiber optics, and network splicing sys-
tems. Deutsche Telekom AG officials have warned
that banning Huawei from 5G could delay network
rollouts by at least two years. Europe already lags
China, South Korea, and the U.S. in 5G investment,
after leading the way with some earlier mobile
technologies.
A “toolbox”publishedbytheEuropeanUnion
tohelpmemberstatesdealwithsecurityrisksin
5Gnetworkshighlightsthewirelesstechnology’s
increased importance in infrastructure, but it defers
policymaking to individual nations. U.K. officialguidelines published in January say “high-risk” sup-
pliers (a term the government has used to describe
Huawei and Chinese rival ZTE Corp.) should be
excluded from “safety related and safety critical net-
works in critical national infrastructure.”
Nonetheless, Huawei’s gear is already deeply
entrenched in communications systems across the
U.K. The company helped set up IT infrastructure
for a National Health Service division in Wiltshire.
Its antennas are used to control trucks and cranes
taking containers off ships at Britain’s largest con-
tainer port at Felixstowe. And Heathrow Airport in
London, Europe’s busiest, uses Huawei gear to emit
and receive controls for such vehicles as trucks▲ Best known for its
handsets, Huawei is also
a huge player in telecom
network gearRESTAURANT: PHOTOGRAPH BY GILLES SABRIE FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK. HUAWEI: NICOLAS ASFOURI/GETTY IMAGES
● Is the popularity of the Chinese company’s
gear in private 5G networks a security threat?A Very
Private Risk
With Huawei