The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the American telecom policeman sent to Congress on February 4 the Invoice replacement of Huawei and ZTE equipment. It’s saltier than expected.
Huawei – United States, the epilogue?
A little flashback: at the end of December 2018, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the founder of Huawei and senior leader of the same group, inaugurated the war waged by the Trump administration against the company and by extension its country of origin, China.
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Very quickly, American agencies accused Huawei of installing backdoors in its equipment so that Beijing could keep an eye on communications in the United States. The FCC voted in 2019, unanimously, for the prohibition of subsidies intended for operators sourcing from representative equipment manufacturers “ threats to the state “.
The first two companies to be ranked in this way will be Huawei and ZTE. At the same time, the FCC is asking two American institutions to assess the cost of replacing the equipment of the two Chinese companies. Verdict: $1.8 billion.
The agency is anticipating the arrival of the “Secure and Trusted Telecommunications Networks Act”, the purpose of which is precisely to impose this “rip and replace”, “rip and replace” operation on operators.
The FCC’s $5.6 billion note
The smaller ones, often preferring cheaper Chinese hardware, cannot afford to retire Huawei and ZTE equipment without federal state support. In anticipation, the FCC has set aside $1.9 billion and opened an application site for this financial support on October 29, 2021.
Jessica Rosenworcel, the new chairman of the FCC, admitted that the bill could be higher than anticipated. The 181 requests for financial support submitted before the closing of the operation on January 28, 2022 represent 5.6 billion dollars.
The final sum could be lower, the FCC has “ there is still work to be done to review these requests “, but Jessica Rosenworcel is counting on Congress” to ensure that there are sufficient funds available for this program to advance Congressional security objectives and ensure that the United States continues to lead the way in 5G security “. Meet at the checkout.