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posted by mrpg on Sunday November 25 2018, @09:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the pot-kettle-black-irony-nsa-fbi-cia-tsa dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Washington Asks Allies to Drop Huawei

The U.S. government has initiated an extraordinary outreach campaign to foreign allies, trying to persuade wireless and internet providers in these countries to avoid telecommunications equipment from China's Huawei Technologies Co., according to people familiar with the situation.

American officials have briefed their government counterparts and telecom executives in friendly countries where Huawei equipment is already in wide use, including Germany, Italy and Japan, about what they see as cybersecurity risks, these people said. The U.S. is also considering increasing financial aid for telecommunications development in countries that shun Chinese-made equipment, some of these people say.

Also: The US is warning other countries against using Huawei's 5G tech


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 25 2018, @11:54AM (7 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 25 2018, @11:54AM (#766138) Journal

    Ignorant consumers around the world are already conditioned to buy the cheapest thing available, regardless of quality. That isn't going to change any time soon. The only way to undercut Huawie is to sell cheaper than Huawie. I don't think that can be done, really. The Chinese government already subsidizes most Chinese industry. Labor is cheap. If the US government starts subsidizing Huawie competition, then the Chinese gov will pour in more subsidy money. And, labor is cheap.

    The ONLY way to beat Chinese competition is with quality, but alas, we've forgotten what that means. No one is going to spend $250 bucks on something, if they can get a $50 knockoff from China.

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  • (Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 25 2018, @01:39PM (1 child)

    by loonycyborg (6905) on Sunday November 25 2018, @01:39PM (#766151)

    The problem that even "knockoffs" become of better quality with time, and there are objective and subjective limits making everyone who bets on quality to eventually lose the race.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Sunday November 25 2018, @03:33PM

      by Unixnut (5779) on Sunday November 25 2018, @03:33PM (#766172)

      Or in my experience, the "branded" products quality gets worse until it isn't much different to the knock offs.

      Not sure when exactly it happened, but from the 2000's onwards it seems the only thing western companies put money into is "branding". They don't bother with quality, they don't really bother with unique innovations and differentiation, now you don't buy an item, you buy "into a brand", whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.

      As a result, most of the time you have a choice between a cheap Chinese white box item for $50, or a cheap Chinese white box item slapped with a "brand" selling for $150. For all bar a minority of shallow narcissists (or people so rich they don't care), people buy the cheaper item.

      and it isn't even just networking gear, everything from cars onwards have just become more or less generic boxes with a badge slapped on them, and then marketing folks trying to sell me on paying for the "lifestyle" the brand represents.

      The days of a brand actually signifying a reputation of some kind to do with the actual item itself, are long gone, at least in the west.

  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday November 25 2018, @02:34PM

    by RamiK (1813) on Sunday November 25 2018, @02:34PM (#766163)

    As previously mentioned [soylentnews.org] last time this came up, this isn't the consumer market but the ISP market where equipment is tested to specs over periods of months before entering deployment and must be approved by national agencies that regulate the spectrum at the very least.

    The ONLY way to beat Chinese competition is with quality

    Maybe in the consumer market. But in the ISP market that's clearly not the case as US corporations are competing by convincing countries to ban ZTE and Huawei on (dubious?) security grounds through USG channels.

    Anyhow, India joined [zdnet.com] the ban while Germany, Japan and Italy are deliberating.

    There's a better Reuters coverage of the subject is focusing on the 5g spectrum auctions and the code review Hauwei equipment is undergoing: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-telecoms-huawei-exclusive/exclusive-chinas-huawei-opens-up-to-german-scrutiny-ahead-of-5g-auctions-idUSKCN1MX1VB [reuters.com]

    The way I see it this is all just the same old trade wars. Back in April USG failed to get Hauwei off the game board by implicating them in Iranian trade sanction violations like they did with ZTE (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-doj/u-s-probing-huawei-for-possible-iran-sanctions-violations-sources-idUSKBN1HW1YG). So, now the State Department is spreading FUD to scare (or force by convincing governments to ban) ISPs into bidding for low-frequency ranges since American companies mostly focused their patents and production on those. Thus, when the dust settles and it becomes clear Hauwei and ZTE aren't spying on anyone, it would be too late since the ISPs would be already invested in the infrastructure and so they'd be forced to buy non-Chinese equipment.

    But overall we need to remind ourselves trade wars are about lose leading and the objective isn't to compete against China as it's about bleeding them dry in preparations for the negotiations table. The only companies benefiting from all of this are the likes of the European Nokia and Ericsson who win bids from third parties that don't want to pick sides and don't trust either parties' equipment over the mutual allegations. It also doesn't help the NSA and CIA been caught backdooring ISP gear on a half dozen occasions in the last couple of years...

    So, fun times for speculators!

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday November 25 2018, @03:51PM

    by crafoo (6639) on Sunday November 25 2018, @03:51PM (#766180)

    Well, I agree in general. However, let's be clear: nothing built in the USA is all that high in quality. As far as consumer goods. Are CNC mills, lathes, etc are pretty good. In the consumer world, once a brand is recognized for quality, they exploit that by injecting it with annoying exploitative shit until their captured audience is almost, but not quite pissed off enough to leave. They burden their products with insane EULAs, forced data collection, and other annoying bullshit.

  • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday November 25 2018, @04:08PM

    by cubancigar11 (330) on Sunday November 25 2018, @04:08PM (#766187) Homepage Journal

    Government "subsidising" private companies, isn't that the same as decreasing tax?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @08:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @08:03PM (#766252)

    "But this is not about consumer devices - this is about big-ticket telecommunications infrastructure equipment." By another AC above.
    Are you just Knee-jerking at Huawei bad Chinese, US government good. These devices are / will be installed and configured by US Telcoms and providers. Of course if you really bothered to look into it you would find that ATT, Version, Sprint, Comcast, Cox etc are all international corporations. Guess that just doesn't fit with your Breitbart, RT, Info Wars programming.

  • (Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday November 25 2018, @09:47PM

    by arslan (3462) on Sunday November 25 2018, @09:47PM (#766288)

    There are cheaper or comparably cheap labor elsewhere in Asia than just China - sure they don't have near as much population as China, but enough to matter for the subject at hand. India is an example. Indonesia is another one, though this one is harder to work with given they are predominantly Muslims which half the U.S. may be allergic to.