Huawei says US push to create a 5G rival ‘would be a challenge’

Plans by the United States to create a 5G rival to Huawei could be a “challenge,” one of the Chinese firm’s top executives told CNBC, amid growing calls from American lawmakers to find alternatives for its next-generation networks.

5G refers to next-generation mobile infrastructure that promises super-fast data speeds and the ability to underpin some future critical infrastructure. Washington has maintained that Huawei is a national security risk alleging that Beijing could use the company’s equipment for espionage. Huawei has repeatedly denied those claim.

Beyond just relying on Ericsson and Nokia, the U.S. has also looked to finding alternatives to Huawei’s networking equipment. In an interview with CNBC, Paul Scanlan, chief technology officer of Huawei’s networking business, explained that the technical standards and actual implementation of 5G have taken about 10 years to create. In the U.K., Tobias Ellwood, chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, said the Five Eyes — an intelligence alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. — should develop its own Huawei rival.

“What I think we need to recognise is that if we do allow Huawei in temporarily, we need to quickly create an alternative, which doesn’t exist at the moment. So you look at Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, you need to get these companies together with some international state funding to create our own 5G capability,” the lawmaker said in a recent interview with Global Defence Technology magazine.

U.S. lawmakers including Rubio have called for the government to back an open source 5G architecture. The result, they claim, would allow new players to enter the networking equipment game for specific components rather than competing with Huawei in the entire architecture.

Huawei says US push to create a 5G rival ‘would be a challenge’, CNBC, Feb 21