Telus’ executive vice-president of technology defends the company’s partnership with Huawei by explaining that it’s hard to not work with companies that have business in China.
Eros Spadotto said during a talk at the Canadian Telecom Summit on June 5th that “The value chain is not only manufacturing any longer. It’s from front to back, from R&D all the way to manufacturing. It’s a globally integrated world.”
“For me, the question is not ‘China, yes or no?’ The question is ‘How?’” he asked.
The Globe and Mail reported that Spadotto indicated Huawei’s rivals all assemble their products in China and also conduct research there.
Huawei’s competitors include Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson.
It’s important to note is that Telus uses 100 percent of Huawei’s equipment in its network infrastructure that is not its core, or where the most sensitive information resides.
A senior executive told MobileSyrup that Huawei’s equipment is also not interoperable, meaning another company’s equipment won’t work Huawei’s.
Telus says Huawei makes equipment that is catered to its network so that it can provide quality services and high network speeds to its customers.
The company has been very clear that banning Huawei from Canada’s 5G networks could have a “material, non-recurring, incremental increase” in the cost of deploying 5G and could “potentially” affect the timing of the deployment.
Canada is still studying 5G and has not come out with a decision on Huawei yet.
The U.S. has accused the company of being a national security threat by using backdoors to spy on citizens. In May, it banned the company from doing any business in the U.S.
It’s global CFO, Meng Wanzhou, will learn more of her extradition on June 6th at a court in British Columbia. She was arrested in December in Vancouver. The U.S. has charged her, Huawei and its subsidiary 13 counts of bank and wire fraud. Huawei denies all allegations, which still have to be proven in court.
At the telecom conference, Huawei Canada’s chief security officer Olivera Zateezalo said the company works closely with the government and that the carriers have control of all the technology.
“We give them to carriers and the carriers have the keys to their network. So, nobody from China or nobody even from Huawei Canada can do anything or touch or see the data, only the carriers,” she said.
Source: The Globe and Mail
