By Stephen Fenech
Huawei might have been excluded from the 5G bid in Australia and the US but the company is not going down without a fight releasing a report detailing a long list of false claims others have made and setting the record straight.
Huawei claims the US Government is spreading misinformation about the embattled Chinese company while implying the State Department knows networking technology better than the telecom operators themselves.
Huawei also has a gripe with former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who based his decision to ban the company from the Australian tender on incorrect information.
So here is Huawei’s long list of false claims:
False claim 1: Huawei offers the cheapest equipment because it gets Chinese government funding.
The company has never said its equipment was cheaper. It is, in fact, higher than most vendors.
Telcos don’t ever buy the cheapest equipment but they do want value for money.
False claim 2: Huawei’s 5G equipment isn’t really advanced, and its 5G patents lack “relevance and value.”
Huawei actually has the highest number of 5G patents and the largest number of granted patent families that are essential for 5G according to CPA Global.
False claim 3: Huawei does not share Western values.
In the digital domain, privacy and security are valued as much by Huawei as the US and other western countries.
Huawei has said publicly it complies with all applicable privacy laws globally.
And in terms of security, no Huawei telecom customer has ever experienced a major cyber security breach.
The company also says there is no evidence that Huawei has ever been compromised by the Chinese Government or any other actors.
False claim 4: Huawei steals intellectual property
Huawei is the largest maker of telecommunications equipment in the world with five hundred telecom operators around the world buying their equipment including more than 200 Fortune 500 companies.
Huawei says they would have been shunned years ago if these companies thought they were stealing anyone else’s IP.
False claim 5: Removing Huawei gear from networks will be easy and quick.
In Australia, Huawei is already part of the 4G networks and replacing existing equipment would run into the billions.
In the US, removing Huawei gear from the networks would force 40 small wireless operators in underserved and remote areas to scrap millions of dollars of equipment.
False claim 6: The U.S. campaign against Huawei is not linked to the trade war with China.
Huawei says the motivation behind the campaign against the company is geopolitical and also linked to the trade war.
In May 2019 President Trump said: “If we made a deal, I could imagine Huawei being possibly included in some form or part of it”.
False claim 7: Huawei can easily hide harmful backdoors in its products.
The Chinese government does not control private companies which are located within its borders.
Clifford Chance, a global law firm headquartered in London, says Chinese law does not give Beijing the authority to compel telco equipment firms like Huawei to install back doors or listening devices.
And because of the high level of scrutiny for Huawei equipment, any attempt to even try and install a backdoor would be immediately detected by telecom customer.
False claim 8: Huawei has unusually close ties to the Chinese government, and the identity of its owners is a “closely guarded secret.”
The identity of Huawei shareholders is public information.
Huawei is actually a private company that is 100 per cent owned by its employees.
And they have no special relationship with the Chinese government.
The company has contacts with various governments around the world – including the government of their own country – but no different to any other sizeable tech company.
False claim 9: Blocking Huawei won’t slow the pace of 5G rollouts worldwide.
Blocking a significant player is problematic when you only have a handful of competitors to begin with.
In the US, more than 90 per cent of wireless infrastructure sales are made by just two companies – Nokia and Ericsson.
According to Oxford Economics, banning Huawei from building out 5G infrastructure could increase that country’s 5G investment costs by up to 20 per cent and slow technological innovation.
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