The war for 5G faces the United States and China

The battle for the development of 5G and its worldwide deployment is the last point of tension between the United States and China (Reuters)

The cold war of the 21st century is a dispute over the control of 5G technology, the fifth generation of broadband that will allow an interconnection between machines and people like never before in the history of humanity. The United States and China are facing the direction of this fourth industrial revolution which will determine what will be the dominant power of the next 50 years.

5G is the first network designed to serve sensors, robots, autonomous vehicles and other devices that continually transmit large amounts of data. This will allow factories, stores, large buildings and even entire cities to operate with less human intervention in daily operations. This will also allow greater use of virtual reality and artificial intelligence tools. Thinks that the interconnection could be 100 times faster than the one we now have with 4G.

But what is good for everyday life is also for the intelligence services and cyberattacks. The 5G system is a physical network of switches and routers. But it depends more on complex software layers, much more adaptable and constantly updated, invisible to users, just as an iPhone updates automatically during night loading. It means that who controls the networks, controls the flow of information and can change, redirect or copy data without the user having an idea of ​​what is happening. Who controls the network, controls the knowledge.

At Donald Trump's White House, one is convinced that there must be only one winner in this technological race and that the loser must be banned. "The race for 5G is underway and the United States must win¨, said the president in a recent speech. For months, the White House has been working on a decree that prohibits US companies from using equipment of Chinese origin in critical telecommunication networks. This goes well beyond the existing rules, which prohibit such equipment only in government networks. Nervousness for Chinese technology has long existed in the United States, fueled by the fear that the Chinese could insert a "back door" in telecommunications networks and computer networks that allow the security services of this country to intercept the military, government and corporate communications of the planet. Chinese cyber-espionage in US government companies and offices is constant. It is managed by hackers working for the Beijing Ministry of Security. And this spy device, in turn, has unlimited access to information managed by its technology companies. Where big Chinese companies come in as Huawei, the spies of this country enter. "It is important to remember that the relations of Chinese companies with the Chinese government do not resemble the relations of private sector companies with Western governments."he explained to New York TimesWilliam Evanina, director of the US National Counterintelligence and Security Center. "China's 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies to support, provide badistance and cooperate in China's national intelligence work, wherever they operate."

Washington's concern grew as governments around the world began to decide which equipment providers would build their 5G networks. Jeremy Hunt, British Foreign Minister, was in Washington last month and, according to the British press, he let the problem appear at every meeting and asked what are the technology plans that Britain will adopt for its 5G networks . . The London government, trapped in the Brexit vortex, has a tense relationship with Beijing and will have to be weighted to resist pressure from both sides. Poland also felt the iron fist of Washington when it negotiated the construction of a US military base – the Polish press calls it "Fort Trump" -. In exchange, they asked to end their relations with Chinese high-tech companies. And even Germany, where most of the giant fiber optic lines in Europe are connected and where Huawei wants to build the switches that make the system work, has felt the bitter breath of the superpower.

The message said that any economic benefit resulting from the use of Chinese telecom equipment was largely outweighed by the threat that security posed to the NATO alliance. The Pentagon argues that the world is engaged in a new arms race, involving technology rather than conventional weapons, and that this poses a serious threat to US national security. At a time when the most powerful weapons, in addition to nuclear weapons, are controlled from cyberspace, The country dominating the 5G network will gain economic, intellectual and military advantage for much of this century.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was provocative but has not made her final decision yet. British Prime Minister Theresa May officially endorsed the Huawei 5G team, with the exception of some key components. Most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have welcomed Huawei with open arms. Only Australia and New Zealand cooperate fully with the United States. Japan has decided to ban himself Huawei. Huawei, already at the forefront of technology, outperforms its competitors in price. Their equipment costs up to 40% cheaper than Nokia and Ericsson, which are for the moment its only competitors, and none of the companies can match Huawei's generous financing terms. Huawei's market share is now greater than the combination of Nokia and Ericsson.

Of course, China is intervening on all fronts to show that it is at the forefront of 5G. At the end of March, mobile operator China Unicom presented a 360-degree 3D video at the Chongqing International Fair, which drew the admiration of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and officials present. The images were four times more accurate than the high resolution content available on Netflix. Live transmission of billions of bits of digital data per second was 20 times faster than the current mobile networks with 4G technology can provide. China Unicom presented a 5G technology designed by Huawei.

In this technological war, there are three fundamental battles. The first is to provide the equipment in which the new networks are built; the second is to widely deploy services that include connection nodes and routers; finally, the development of a complete package: software, peripherals, services and industrial processes. The United States has already lost the first race and, perhaps, the second, but they can not afford to be left behind in the third as well, which brings the main economic benefits. Of course, the Washington government's Communications Commission has banned Chinese companies from building "essential" network infrastructure in the United States and Huawei components across all networks in the country. "US technology companies have the right to refuse to cooperate with the government's requests for espionage, to sue if pressure is exerted and to divulge any espionage to the media," said Timothy Heath, international defense researcher. at Rand Corporation. "Chinese companies do not have these options. They are required by law to cooperate with any request from the Chinese government" The Trump administration is using the same argument to entice the rest of the world to avoid the expansion of Huawei 5G and threatens to break the links of intelligence with any country that resists.

For the moment, according to public information, there are three serious international competitors able to build 5G networks: China, United States and South Korea. Operators in the three countries (plus one in Switzerland) claim to have introduced the first 5G services to a limited number of mobile customers and Japan is expected to launch its test service shortly. But the American networks, offered by Verizon in 22 cities, have an irregular coverage. In social networks, there is a lot of ridicule towards the company for these failures. The rest of the mobile operators are showing no sign of offering 5G national coverage before 2021. According to the technicians, China is behind one or two years of progress in these developments. The Beijing government has badigned a top priority and an account, as in all projects undertaken around the world, with its own funding. Whatever the case may be, the United States remains at the forefront of finding innovative ways to make big data work for businesses and consumers. This, mainly thanks to technology giants like Google and Amazon, who spend billions of dollars on research and a thriving ecosystem of new technologies. This will exponentially increase the investment in 5G in a short time. Take video games and hobbies to another level; educational and advertising content; and refrigerators, clocks, buildings, store shelves, etc. that send sensor data to remote servers running artificial intelligence applications. The economic impact of these services would be much more important than the construction of equipment and the installation of networks. It is expected that 5G applications will generate $ 4 trillion worldwide only in the first two years. In contrast, the total global market expected for the installation of 5G networks over the next four years is significantly lower at 57,000 million euros, according to industrial research company IDC. Maintaining a dominant position in applications may allow the United States to remain the leading factor of technological influence in the world. "Think of what the US has gained economically, politically and militarily by being the first to master Internet technologies and China's difficulties in catching up," said Heath of Rand Corp. "It is likely that 5G will develop in a similar way." Finally, the United States may end by thanking China, and in particular Huawei, for installing the main gas pipelines into the network, which will speed up the activities that interest them the most. But the war will continue and will be more and more bloody. The rest of the world will suffer the consequences.