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By Dave Dave and Chris Prentice
NEWPORTBEACH, California / NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some of the world's largest tech companies have told their employees to stop talking about technology and technical standards with their counterparts at Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in response to the recent US technology blacklist , according to people close to the file. .
Intel Corp chip makers and Qualcomm Inc., InterDigital Wireless Inc.'s mobile research company and South Korean carrier LG Uplus have prevented employees from conversing informally with Huawei, the largest telecom equipment manufacturer in the world. world, said these sources.
These discussions are part of the routine of international meetings where engineers come together to set technical standards for communication technologies, including the next generation of mobile phone networks called 5G.
The US Department of Commerce has not banned contacts between companies and Huawei. May 16, the agency put Huawei on a blacklist, preventing it from dealing with US companies without government approval, and then a few days later, it allowed US companies to interact with Huawei in the regulatory bodies until August "if necessary for the development of 5G commercial standards." The Commerce Department reiterated this position Friday in response to a question from Reuters.
Nevertheless, at least a handful of major US and foreign technology companies have asked its employees to limit certain forms of direct interaction, they said, as they sought to avoid any potential problems with the US government.
Intel and Qualcomm said they provided compliance instructions to employees, but declined to comment further.
An InterDigital spokesman said the latter had provided engineers with instructions to ensure that the company complied with US regulations.
A manager of LG Uplus said that the company "voluntarily refrains from interacting with Huawei's workers, apart from the need to meet for installation or maintenance problems of the company." 39, network equipment ".
Huawei did not comment.
5G SLOW DOWN
According to several industry experts, the new restrictions could slow down the deployment of 5G, which should power everything from high-speed video transmissions to autonomous cars.
At a meeting on 5G standards held last week in Newport Beach, California, participants told a private alert to Reuters that the long-standing cooperation required by engineers to allow phones and networks to connect to the world could be a victim of the "technology war". "Between the United States and China.
A representative of a European company that has put in place rules prohibiting any interaction with Huawei has described as "shaken" the people involved in the development of 5G. "It could push everyone to their own corner, and we need cooperation to get to 5G. It should be a global market, "said the person.
While many small telecom workers said they were not told to avoid discussions with Huawei at standards meetings, many suppliers continue to support existing agreements with Huawei. It is unclear to what extent communications with Huawei have been reduced, if at all, in the technology sector.
"There has been a lot of misunderstanding about what I see and hear from my clients and colleagues, regarding restrictions imposed by the (Commerce Department)," said Doug Jacobson, a lawyer specializing in Washington-based export control.
He said that companies banning their employees from contacting Huawei were "excessive, because restrictions do not prevent communication, but only technology transfer".
Huawei, whose US claims that the equipment could be used by China, has become a central figure in the trade war between the two largest economies in the world. Huawei has repeatedly denied being controlled by the Chinese government, the military or the intelligence services.
China, the United States and European companies have already divided over standards for Wi-Fi, cell networks and other technologies, and tariff agreements between Beijing and Washington have raised fears another bifurcation.
Huawei is a leading player in various global organizations that define technical specifications. As one of the world's leading manufacturers of devices such as smartphones and essential network components such as routers and switches, Huawei will have to be at the table of standardization to ensure a seamless customer experience when networks 5G are becoming predominant, engineers and experts have said.
NO MOREINFORMALBats
Systems engineers and architects representing their employers at meetings of the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), a global consortium of industry badociations to define 5G specifications by March 2020, are organizing often general and formal discussions in smaller and less documented sessions as they try. find an agreement with his rivals.
But at the 3GPP meeting in California last week, one of three group presidents, Nokia's Balazs Bertenyi, told participants that more of these so-called "offline conversations" "That would usually be documented by the standards body with notes and other public records. .
It was "the practical implication" of the new rules of the US Department of Commerce, warned by the industry despite the waiver granted to the 5G talks, he said.
Companies want to limit informal exchanges, in which their engineers feel more comfortable discussing proprietary technology with their competitors to persuade them of why their research or innovations are more valuable, said the sources.
A separate standardization body, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), limit the ability of Huawei engineers to participate in peer reviews of its publications, prompting criticism from some of the Chinese industry and others.
The organization, which declined to comment beyond the generic statements on its website, then backtracked a few days later after declaring that it had received the green light from the US Department of Commerce regarding the issue of peer review. He did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
"Huawei is not just a business. They are, in many ways, the leader in 5G technology. It is very difficult to exclude them, which is likely to disrupt the whole project, "said Jorge Contreras, a law professor at the University of Utah. IEEE member.
"If the idea is to create a non-Chinese 5G, I'm not sure it's possible. Even if it is, would it be as well?
(Report by Paresh Dave in Newport Beach, California and Chris Prentice in New York, additional report by Ju-min Park in Seoul, edited by Chris Sanders and Bill Rigby)
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