A unanimous decision in the U.S. Senate: with the Secure and Trusted Telecommunications Network Act there is a ban on U.S. government entities on Huawei and ZTE products, as is the introduction of a fund to finance the dismantling of already installed Huawei equipment in networks.
In December 2019, the bill passed through the House of Representatives; it was only at the end of February that the Senate voted on the proposal to limit Huawei‘s influence in the American telecom network. Not only does the act mean a ban on buying Huawei (and ZTE) products with federal money, it will also make a billion dollars available to smaller telecom providers to remove material already placed by Chinese manufacturers. President Donald Trump has yet to sign under the law, but it is well known that he supports the ban.
In a reaction, Senator Roger Wicker (Mississippi) explains why there was unanimous support for the ban:
“The use of telecoms equipment from certain foreign opponents poses a considerable threat to our national security, economic prosperity and the future of US leadership in cutting-edge wireless technology. With this decommissioning program, our communications network will be more secure for U.S. users and I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the table”.
Acceptance of the act by the Senate comes shortly after the U.S. court found Huawei wrong in a lawsuit brought to challenge the ban on Huawei smartphones by parts of the government. According to Huawei, the ban meant a violation of their work, but the court ruled that supplying them was ‘a privilege and not a standard’.
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