Norway is considering following other Western countries in excluding Huawei when building their new infrastructure for 5G. That’s what the Norwegian Minister of Justice said on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
The Norwegian government is currently discussing measures to reduce potential vulnerabilities in the telecom industry before the upgrade takes place. State-owned provider Telenor, with 173 million subscribers in eight European and Asian countries, signed its first major contract with Huawei in 2009. Currently, Telenor and competitor use Telia 4G company equipment, and test equipment in their experimental 5G network.
“We share the same concerns as the United States and Great Britain, and that is spying on private and state actors in Norway,” said Mikkel Wara, Minister of Justice. “The question is a high priority. When asked whether any action could be taken against Huawei in particular, Wara said: “yes, we are considering the steps taken in other countries. The steps taken in the US and Britain.”
Safe
Huawei responded by saying that his equipment is safe. “Our customers in Norway have strong security requirements and they manage the risk in their operations in a good way,” says Tore Oderloekken, CSO at Huawei in Norway. “We continue to be open and transparent, offering extensive testing and verification of our equipment to prove that we can deliver safe products in the 5G network in Norway.”
Several countries are afraid that Huawei is being abused by the Chinese government for espionage. The United States had already asked friendly countries to exclude the company from their 5G connectivity. In Great Britain, provider BT is removing the company’s equipment from the core of its existing 3G and 4G networks. Huawei himself has repeatedly denied the accusations.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.