A business group advocating for telecom operators in the EU warned that banning Chinese equipment vendors for political motives is not a great idea. They say that it will increase costs and cause network upgrade delays.
The European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) said that the organization denounces any bans on Chinese 5G suppliers for geopolitical reasons. The group emphasizes that decisions like these be made using established facts.
Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be a big fan of established facts, choosing to use unconventional trade war tactics in an aggressively unwise way.
The U.S. tradewar
ECTA groups include 1&1 Drillisch, Bouygues, Centurylink, Colt, Iliad, Masmovil, Turkcell, Turknet and Wind. Huawei Technologies is also on board with this stance as the world’s leading network market leader.
In Europe, Huawei’s position was compromised when the U.S. launched a campaign to purge the company’s next-gen 5G equipment. Washington claims that the devices can be used for spying, even as Huawei maintains that this is not true and invites everyone to investigate the products.
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ECTA released its statement after France imposed its restrictions on Huawei equipment, effectively banning the company. Belgium providers Orange and Proximus also introduced this politically charged atmosphere into their spheres of influence when they replaced Huawei with Nokia as a supplier of radio access network gear for their 5G networks.
A fallout is coming
The General Director of ECTA, Luc Hindryckx, said that the organization’s statement reflects concerns of EU’s adoption of a general vendor risk assessment method, leading to more de facto or actual bans on Chinese vendors.
Excluding Huawei and ZTE will leave telecoms with three suppliers; Nokia, Samsung, and Ericsson. Reducing suppliers from 5 to 3 will increase costs, negatively affect performance, and delay 5G network development.
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