16 Leaders The EconomistNovember 7th 2020
2 bin their job applications. Mr Macron has vowed to fight racism,
and improve opportunities for people in deprived neighbour-
hoods, “of whatever skin colour, origin, religion”. He will have
his work cut out, even without his own ministers undermining
him by griping absurdly about the existence of separate shelves
for halal food in supermarkets.
Yet it is important not to lose sight of two points of context.
First, more than 250 people have been killed in Islamist terrorist
attacks in France since 2015. Last year more suspects of jihadist
terrorism were arrested in France than in any other eucountry.
French intelligence services warn that radicals are waging a war
for the minds of the young, especially online, to win recruits to
violence. France is right to be more concerned than most, and to
seek to respond firmly (see Europe section).Second, France is also right to defend free speech. A religion is
a set of ideas, and therefore open to debate and even mockery.
Considerate speakers will try not to give gratuitous offence. But
governments should not compel them to be inoffensive. If they
did, everyone would have to censor themselves, for fear of of-
fending the most easily offended person in the audience. And as
Mr Paty discovered, an audience can include anyone on Earth
with a phone.
The French state should never give the impression that it en-
dorses blasphemy, but it is right to protect blasphemers, just as it
is right to protect those who complain about them, so long as
they do not advocate violence. As many thoughtful Muslims in
France and elsewhere have pointed out, no matter how offended
you feel, the answer to speech is not knives: it is more speech. 7T
he signalwas easy to miss amid the noise of new lockdowns
and America’s elections. Earlier this week, Vodafone, a mo-
bile operator, announced that in Britain it would use a technol-
ogy called Openranto replace some gear made by Huawei, a Chi-
nese firm whose products are considered too much of a security
risk to be used in the new 5gmobile networks. It is a sign that the
much-discussed Huawei dilemma is not as intractable as it may
seem—and a reminder that Openrandeserves more private-
sector and government support.
In recent years America has conducted a campaign against
Huawei, which it worries poses a threat to Western interests and
which has built a commanding position in 5gsystems globally.
Australia, Canada and Japan have already in effect banned Hua-
wei from their 5gnetworks. In July Britain said it would phase
out its gear, and on October 20th Sweden said it would impose a
ban, too. More countries may follow.
The trouble is that the costs of ditching Hua-
wei are high: you risk becoming reliant on two
big Nordic firms, Nokia and Ericsson, the other
main suppliers of 5ggear. In the long run a duo-
poly is bad for competition and innovation. And
in the short run neither firm is infallible. Nokia,
in particular, is in trouble. On October 29th it an-
nounced a drop in sales of 7% year on year, and
its shares plunged by almost 20%. Its new boss said that it had
been “clearly behind” on 5g.
Openranis an alternative to relying on either Huawei or the
Nordic duo. Along with a related technology called network vir-
tualisation, it changes the rules of the game. To understand why,
compare an old tethered telephone with a modern smartphone.
One is a dedicated piece of hardware made of customised parts,
whereas the other is a general-purpose computer controlled by
software that can accommodate any type of app, provided it
complies with certain technical rules.
Similarly, conventional mobile networks are made out of spe-
cialised equipment, whereas the new Openrankind use mostly
off-the-shelf hardware, with lots of code defining what it can do.
Because all the gear connects up using standard interfaces, carri-
ers can mix and match products from different suppliers—something that they cannot do today. Operators have more in-
sight into what is going on in their networks and can avoid com-
ponents they do not trust, such as Chinese chips. They could also
save a lot of money and become quicker on their feet.
Openranis gaining momentum. Last month Rakuten Mobile
launched the world’s first 5g network based on Openran—
which helped the Japanese carrier cut investment by 40% (see
Schumpeter). It can also put together new services within min-
utes instead of months, as is the case with conventional net-
works. In September Telefónica, which has 260m mobile sub-
scribers in Europe and Latin America, teamed up with Rakuten
to deploy Openranmore widely in its networks by 2025. In
America Dish has started to build a 5gnetwork based on the tech-
nology. With the notable exception of Huawei, even equipment-
makers are coming on board. Ericsson has just announced its
first related product.
Yet Openranstill has problems. The supply
chain is untested and may face bottlenecks if de-
mand suddenly surges as more mobile opera-
tors sign up. Notwithstanding its roll-out in ur-
ban parts of Japan, experts fear that the
technology may not yet function well in densely
populated cities; most carriers, including Voda-
fone, want to test it in rural areas first. Integrat-
ing the many different products that make up an Openrannet-
work is hard. And although the technology lowers the potential
security threat from China, it creates new openings for hackers.
All this means that governments still have a role to play. They
should help tackle bottlenecks by, for example, encouraging in-
vestment in the development of specialist chips that power an-
tennae, as well as laboratories that test integration of a network’s
components, as lawmakers in America have proposed. They
should also follow Japan by promoting a common set of stan-
dards among equipment-makers and network-operators that
deals with security and mandates at least some compliance with
Openran. The choice between relying on a monolithic Chinese
firm that is not fully trusted or on a doddery Western duopoly is a
rotten one. It would be a lot better to give a new type of technol-
ogy a chance to thrive. 7Open sesame
A new technology could be the answer to the Huawei dilemma that many countries are still torn overAlternative 5G technology