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Huawei took three tables at a Chinese New Year banquet at the Dorchester Hotel in London last Thursday, a welcome opportunity for leaders of the UK telecom industry in the business sector. wine and dinner, and to rebuild relationships that have deteriorated in recent months.
Jerry Wang, UK head of telecommunications equipment supplier in the UK, spoke to try to calm Huawei's role in building 5G networks, after the US, Australia and Nova Scotia Zealand had decided to ban the company for reasons of national security.
While the debate on Huawei's use for the next generation of mobile internet is raging in Europe, Mr Wang said the company had already spent £ 2 billion in the UK and planned to spend 3 £ billion more in the 5G era.
"The UK's open attitude and support for free markets and businesses are values that are respected around the world and we admire at Huawei. In these uncertain times, we trust Britain to maintain openness and integrity and to make the right choices that serve the interests of British citizens, "said Wang.
But the three dinner tables, where Huawei had hosted the leaders of the telecom companies in previous years, were filled this year by younger representatives.
The event partly hit a party hosted by BT's past president, Gavin Patterson.
But some leaders have also been embarrbaded to accept Huawei's hospitality at a time when Chinese society has been accused by US authorities of espionage and violation of sanctions. "This is not really the year of the pig, but the year of his ear," said one of the leading advisers in the telecommunications sector, who did not attend the meeting.
Huawei's relationship with the European telecommunications industry has been severely affected by political pressure from the US and other governments at a time when operators are deciding how to build their 5G networks.
A general ban on Huawei's equipment, not only at the heart of the network but also at the level of the radio access layer, the masts that transmit information to the heart, is likely to delay the launch of the 5G by several years and to generate substantial costs for the operators. they are decoding and replacing, rather than upgrading existing 4G advanced equipment.
In such a scenario, operators such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Veon will see their global relationship with Huawei broken, depending on whether countries allow full, partial or no use of Chinese equipment.
It is also feared that Huawei's ban will create a duopoly of Ericsson and Nokia in some markets, a scenario that could erode margins over time.
Huawei and its Chinese rival ZTE, both of which have been targeted by the United States in particular, have helped lower equipment prices over the years, helped by access to cheap financing. Huawei equipment is no longer the cheapest on the market, but its heavy investments in research and development have made its equipment the most advanced.
Until now, operators have expressed their public support to the Chinese company while taking measures to protect themselves from more serious political consequences.
BT has decided to remove the Huawei software from the heart of the EE mobile network, while Deutsche Telekom, which is partly owned by the German state, has proposed a series of measures to mitigate security issues, including verification of the source code .
The most alarming point for Huawei was perhaps the fact that Vodafone, one of its biggest customers outside China for more than 10 years, wanted to "suspend" the purchase and installation of one of its equipment at the heart of its networks in the countries of Spain and Eastern Europe.
The situation has become critical in the sector. The GSMA, the commercial arm of the mobile phone industry, announced it would discuss how it would respond to pressure to ban Huawei at its annual board meeting. administration at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona at the end of February.
GSMA's current president, Stéphane Richard, who has already announced that his company would not use Huawei in France, also includes representatives of the three Chinese telecommunications operators.
At the same time, Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei, should visit the MWC to meet telecom officials while the company tries to limit the damage.
For telecommunications officials, accusations that Huawei's Chinese law obliges Huawei to help collect intelligence do not take into account the protections put in place by the operators.
Nick Read, general manager of Vodafone, who opposes a ban on Huawei's equipment, said telecom companies needed to hold more talks with governments and security services to "get the facts on the table."
Earlier this month, BT sent senior security officials to a meeting with the ministers of the joint committee on national security strategy to discuss Huawei's role in the network.
An industry executive said Russian telecom companies were using Huawei hardware and their security departments had made a thorough technical badessment of the equipment. "They looked at it very closely, probably more than the Americans, and never found a back door or virus," he said.
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Gavin Patterson, the outgoing CEO of BT, said his company would persevere with 5G trials using Huawei, as well as hardware from rivals.
He added that his confidence stemmed not only from BT's network architecture, which prevents Huawei from staying out of the kernel, but also from GCHQ, the UK government's security arm, which controls Huawei equipment. "We are world leaders in cybersecurity. I trust them, "he said.
Boris Nemsic, chairman of the Delta consultant and former sector leader, said the stakes were important for Europe, which was likely to lag not only in the United States, China and parts of the world. Asia, if it decided to ban the equipment so late from Huawei. the day. He added that he could end up in fleeing countries in Africa and the Middle East, who do not hesitate to deploy more advanced 5G equipment from Huawei.
"Huawei did a great job. In Europe, we must be jealous. For 20 to 30 years, we were ahead but we were wrong. They now have such power behind them. The industry needs Huawei as a balance for Nokia and Ericsson. It would be a very big limitation to exclude them, "he said.
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