https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/huawei-sues-fcc-to-stop-ban-on-huawei-gear-in-us-funded-
Huawei has sued the Federal Communications Commission over the agency's order that bans Huawei equipment in certain government-funded telecom projects.
[...] The FCC voted unanimously on November 22 to ban Huawei and ZTE equipment in projects paid for by the commission's Universal Service Fund (USF). The order will affect many small telecom providers that rely on the companies' network gear.
[...] "The US government has never presented real evidence to show that Huawei is a national security threat," Song said. "That's because this evidence does not exist. When pushed for facts, they respond that 'disclosing evidence might also undermine US national security.' This is complete nonsense."
[...] "We've built networks in places where other vendors would not go. They were too remote, or the terrain was difficult, or there just wasn't a big enough population," he said. "In the US, we sell equipment to 40 small wireless and wireline operators. They connect schools, hospitals, farms, homes, community colleges, and emergency services."
Hoftstra University law professor Julian Ku said that "even a small [Huawei] victory in the case, one that makes the FCC go and start the process over again, would be a huge victory for them," according to The New York Times. But it may be a difficult case for Huawei to win because US courts usually give federal agencies "a tremendous amount of deference," Ku said.
Previously:
Huawei Funds $56M in Academic Research in Canada. That Has Some Experts Concerned
How China Is Building A World-Beating Phone Network
FCC Tells US Telcos: Buy Chinese Kit And You Won't See Another Dime From Us
American Giants Get 90 Days To Wrap Up Deals With 'Dangerous' Huawei
Huawei's First Google-Free Phone Stripped And Searched: Repair Not Too Painful... Once You're In
U.S. Chief Technology Officer Urges Europe to Take a Stand Against Huawei
Microsoft President Says US Government Isn't Being Open About Huawei Ban
Huawei: ARM Cortex-A77 Cores Would Shorten Battery Life
Huawei Might Put its IOT OS on Mobile Phones After All
Huawei Announces HarmonyOS, a Smartphone OS and Android Alternative
Huawei Doesn't See Open Source as the Fix for Spying Accusations (but They Should)
Huawei Reportedly Helped North Korea Build Out 3G Network in Secret
Huawei's Android Alternative Lives on... for IoT
What Huawei To Go: Hundreds Of Chinese Tech Giant's US Workers To Get Pink Slip
Trump Administration Will Loosen Restrictions Against Huawei
Huawei Soldiers on, Announces Nova 5 and Kirin 810
Huawei Blacklisting Predicted to Cause DRAM Prices to Drop 15%
NSA Spied on Chinese Government and Huawei
Related Stories
omoc writes:
"From the SPON article:
"The American government conducted a major intelligence offensive against China, with targets including the Chinese government and networking company Huawei, according to documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden that have been viewed by SPIEGEL. Among the American intelligence service's targets were former Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Chinese Trade Ministry, banks, as well as telecommunications companies. But the NSA made a special effort to target Huawei.
According to a top secret NSA presentation, NSA workers not only succeeded in accessing the email archive, but also the secret source code of individual Huwaei products."
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463
DRAMeXchange, tech market intelligence firm TrendForce's memeory and storage branch, today added yet another entry to the list of industries expected to be negatively affected by tension between the U.S. and China. The research firm announced that it expects Huawei's blacklisting by the U.S. government to contribute to a DRAM price drop of up to 15% in the third quarter.
"As ripples from the U.S. ban continue to spread, Huawei's shipments of smartphone and server products are feared to face heavy obstacles for the next two to three quarters , impacting peak-season-demand for DRAM products 2H and the time of price precipitation," DRAMeXchange said.
[...] In its report, DRAMeXchange noted its earlier prediction that the likeliness of DRAM prices falling under suppliers' "fully-loaded costs" would be "extremely slim under the premises that the competition only consisted of three giants, and that DRAM production processes were nearing physical limits." The analyst is now changing its stance.
"Yet, a heated U.S.-China trade war may send demand in the second half of this year into quick-freeze, with the increasingly looming uncertainty compelling datacenters to make reductions to capex. Fragile DRAM suppliers may have to admit current inventory casualties on the books by the end of this year, and officially modify their financial statements to report: 'Loss,'" DRAMeXchange said.
Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dram-memory-market-huawei-impact-us-china,39588.html
Huawei Clarifies Android Update Situation, Commits to Android Q for Last 2 Generations
Huawei last night launched an information campaign about the status of software updates on existing devices in the face of the company's troubles with the U.S. Commerce Department.
The important news is that Huawei is confirming to and committing to continues[sic] security and Android platform updates, specifically the upcoming release of Android Q.
In general the news is no surprise as certification and approval happens several months before the actual software update. With Huawei receiving a reprieve on updates, it means in general business continues as usual for the moment being.
Huawei Announces Nova 5 & Nova Pro in China: Introduces New Kirin 810 Chipset
Today Huawei announced the brand new Nova 5 series of smartphones. The company released the new Nova 5, Nova 5 Pro and Nova 5i in China with availability later this month. The new Nova 5 and 5 Pro are particularly interesting because they now represent Huawei's lowest priced devices with OLED displays, also featuring high-end cameras and SoC options.
The new Nova 5 and Nova 5 Pro are interesting phones because they are essentially the same device, with the peculiarity of having different SoC options: The Nova 5 in particular is the first phone to now introduce the new Kirin 810 chipset. The new chip features a combination of 2x Cortex A76 CPUs at up to 2.23GHz and 6x Cortex A55's at 1.88GHz. In terms of GPU, Huawei has opted for a Mali-G52MP6 running at 820MHz. It looks like the Kirin 810 is extremely well positioned to compete against Qualcomm's Snapdragon 730 SoC which was announced just back in April.
Previously: Huawei Working on its Own OS to Prepare for "Worst-Case Scenario" of Being Deprived of Android
Google Pulls Huawei's Android License
The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google's Iron Grip On Android
Huawei Calls on U.S. to Adjust its Approach to Tackle Cybersecurity Effectively
Google Doesn't Want Huawei Ban Because It Would Result in an Android Competitor
Trump reversed course on Huawei. What happens now?
Six weeks after Huawei was blacklisted by the US government, President Donald Trump had what the Chinese telecom firm described as a "U-turn." Trump said Saturday that "US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei," allowing the transactions won't present a "great, national emergency problem."
Trump's comments at the G20 in Japan came after a widely anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jingping. The two sides met to discuss the impasse in the trade dispute, and Huawei, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, has become a flash point in the battle.
In May, the US Commerce Department banned sales of American-made goods to Huawei without first obtaining a license. US officials have accused the company of working to undermine US national security and foreign policy interests. Trump said Huawei was still part of the ongoing trade discussions between Washington and Beijing, but for now, he would move to resume allowing US companies to sell parts to the Chinese firm.
Also at Android Authority and Business Insider:
President Trump has said US firms can continue selling to Huawei, apparently contradicting a Commerce Department trade blacklist on the Chinese tech firm.
See also: A China-U.S. Trade Truce Could Enshrine a Global Economic Shift
Previously: New Law Bans U.S. Government from Buying Equipment from Chinese Telecom Giants ZTE and Huawei
Huawei Working on its Own OS to Prepare for "Worst-Case Scenario" of Being Deprived of Android
Google Pulls Huawei's Android License
The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google's Iron Grip On Android
Huawei Calls on U.S. to Adjust its Approach to Tackle Cybersecurity Effectively
Google Doesn't Want Huawei Ban Because It Would Result in an Android Competitor
Huawei Soldiers on, Announces Nova 5 and Kirin 810
Related: U.S. Reaches Deal to Keep China's ZTE in Business: Congressional Aide
US Hits China's ZTE with $1 Billion Penalty
Huawei, the Chinese manufacturer targeted by a Trump administration trade ban, is expected to dismiss a substantial number of people in the US in the coming weeks.
The number of individuals affected remains unclear but the layoffs, at the telecoms kit maker's US R&D subsidiary, Futurewei Technologies, could affect hundreds of workers in California, Texas, and Washington, according to The Wall Street Journal. Futurewei currently employs more than 800 people in the US.
On May 16, the beleaguered manufacturer, along with 68 of its affiliates, was placed on the US Commerce Department's Entity List, which forbids companies subject to US law from doing business with the firm without special permission from the US government.
Four days later, Huawei was given a 90-day General License so that its customers have time to make deals with new suppliers. When the General License expires on August 19, the ban will go into effect unless circumstances change.
US officials believe Huawei cannot be trusted because the company cannot resist demands by the Chinese government to compromise its equipment to assist with state-sponsored spying. No public evidence of this has been presented.
[...] Layoffs would be consistent with the broader financial impact of the pending Huawei trade ban. In June, at an event at Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China, company founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, predicted the telecom firm's revenue will reach only about $100bn in 2019 and 2020, about $30bn less than previously anticipated in the next two years. But he said the company will emerge stronger by 2021.
Huawei's HongMeng OS was supposed to be the company's answer to counter the Android license ban if it ended up meddling in the company consumer business. There were near-endless waves of rumors talking about software optimization and how it was faster than Google's mobile platform, but it looks like Huawei's Senior Vice President has finally cleared the air on the company's efforts towards HongMeng OS. Apparently, it is not going to be presented as an Android alternative for smartphones, but it will still have a variety of benefits.
Huawei board member and Senior Vice President Catherine Chen at a meeting in Brussels stated that HongMeng OS isn't designed for smartphones. That is rather strange to hear, especially when the Huawei co-founder repeatedly stated that the company's custom operating system is likely faster than Android or iOS, but lacks a competitive app ecosystem. Catherine also says that smartphone operating systems feature millions of lines of code, while HongMeng OS doesn't.
Even though she claims that HongMeng OS features an extremely low latency compared to a smartphone OS, it will be used in IoT-related applications, with the platform apparently being in development way before the Android license ban came into effect.
Previously: Google Pulls Huawei's Android License
The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google's Iron Grip On Android
Google Doesn't Want Huawei Ban Because It Would Result in an Android Competitor
Trump Administration Will Loosen Restrictions Against Huawei
What Huawei To Go: Hundreds Of Chinese Tech Giant's US Workers To Get Pink Slip
Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser
Huawei reportedly helped North Korea build out 3G network in secret
A new report could ultimately prove another bombshell in Huawei's ongoing conflicts with the U.S. government. New documents obtained by The Washington Post tie the Chinese hardware giant to North Korea's commercial 3G wireless network.
If proven, the ties would be yet more fodder for the U.S., which has already dinged the company over charges of violating Iran sanctions. The government has also investigated potential ties between Huawei and North Korea for years, though concrete links have apparently remained elusive.
This latest report arrives by way of a former Huawei employee, with confirmation and supporting documents from other sources who have also requested to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. For its part, Huawei has stated that it has "no business presence" in the embattled country.
"Huawei is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries and regions where we operate, including all export control and sanction laws and regulations," it said in a statement offered to the press. Notably, the statements appear to apply primarily to its current business offerings, while declining to comment on the past.
Networking equipment is one of the last bastions of technology where opaque, proprietary, closed-source hardware continues to thrive. This opacity—combined with networking equipment functioning as the backbone of enterprise computing—creates a fertile breeding ground for fear, uncertainty, and doubt to proliferate. As a result of this, Huawei has spent nearly a decade embattled by accusations of spying for the Chinese government, and since May, a blacklisting.
[...] There's an aphorism named "Linus's Law" which states "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This plausibly applies to Huawei's circumstances: Publishing the full source code to Huawei products is a simplistic—and maximalist—way of dealing with security vulnerabilities and undercut accusations of spying that have plagued Huawei for years.
Opening Huawei products to third-party scrutiny would—at a minimum—surface situations where third-party open-source libraries are not being properly updated, if not allow security researchers the ability to identify vulnerabilities in Huawei-developed code. Such an initiative could also be used to create a shared build platform, making security updates easier to deploy across different device models.
link: https://disruptive.asia/huawei-tests-smartphone-equipped-with-hongmeng-os/
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is testing a smartphone equipped with Hongmeng, the company's self-developed operating system, which could potentially go on sale by the end of this year, Chinese state-media outlet Global Times reported.
[...] Huawei executives have previously described Hongmeng as an operating system designed for IOT (internet-of-things) products. Last month the company said the first major devices powered by Hongmeng would be its upcoming line of Honor-brand smart TVs.
Anonymous Coward writes:
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Why-the-Kirin-990-uses-the-Cortex-A76-and-not-the-A77_id118763
Just a couple of days ago, Huawei rolled out the Kirin 990 SoC. Designed by Huawei's HiSilicon unit and manufactured by TSMC using its 7nm+ EUV process, each chip contains 10.3 billion transistors and has an integrated 5G modem chip. The component will be powering the new Mate 30 line and the delay in releasing the foldable Mate X has allowed Huawei to stuff that device with its new chipset as well. Originally, the Kirin 980 SoC was designed into the niche device.
The Kirin 990 has eight CPU cores; four are powerful Cortex-A76 cores (with two running at a clock speed of 2.86GHz and the other two at 2.34GHz). And there are four Cortex-A55 cores with a clock speed of 1.9GHz for general housekeeping. The one question that many are asking is why Huawei didn't include ARM's latest and greatest Cortex-A77 core inside the Kirin 990. And when that question was asked of Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer group, he gave some interesting responses according to GizChina. And no, it has nothing to do with the U.S. supply chain ban.
The Huawei executive said that since the performance of the Kirin 990 is "beyond the user's needs," trading additional power in exchange for a shorter battery life is not worth it according to Yu. Even though ARM says that the Cortex-A77 provides a 20% boost in performance with no additional power consumption, Huawei's testing contradicts ARM's claims.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
When Microsoft asked US lawmakers to explain the threat [from Huawei], they've been too vague for Smith's liking. Huawei is a major customer of his company: Its laptops come with Microsoft's Windows operating system.
"Oftentimes, what we get in response is, 'Well, if you knew what we knew, you would agree with us'," Smith told Bloomberg. "And our answer is, 'Great, show us what you know so we can decide for ourselves. That's the way this country works.' "
[...] Smith, who's also Microsoft's chief legal officer, said his company argued that the department should limit its ban to sales that pose national security risks, such as universities with Chinese military links -- an approach he compared to a "scalpel" rather than its current "meat cleaver" method.
Neither Huawei nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment.
US Official Criticizes Europe For Letting Huawei 5G Equipment Inside Borders
At this point, the United States' open opposition to Europe adopting Chinese tech giant Huawei's 5G equipment is well known. The US considers Huawei's legal commitments to the Chinese government and potential backdoors in the company's 5G equipment a national security threat. Subsequently, the country wants its European allies to forego 5G networking gear from Huawei at the cost of being left behind in the race to adopt the next-generation networking standard.
[...] Speaking at a tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, US Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios urged Europe to follow America's lead in dealing with Huawei. Mr. Kratsios asked Europe to ''take a stand'' against the Chinese company who the US believes can be forced by China's intelligence to hand over sensitive data at any point in time.
Mr. Kratsios' statements come at a time when Europe is welcoming Huawei with open arms. Earlier this week Hungary announced that it would allow Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone to work with Huawei in introducing 5G services in the country. The decision marked another European country that's unfazed by the US' concerns. Germany, UK and other European countries have already laid down frameworks for letting Huawei's equipment broadcast 5G within their borders, but recent statements by the German foreign minister Heiko Maas suggest that Germany might be having second-thoughts about fully trusting Huawei.
Previously: Washington Asks Allies to Drop Huawei
Germany and the EU Likely to Embrace Huawei, Rebuff the U.S.
EU to Drop Threat of Huawei Ban but Wants 5G Risks Monitored
The good geeks of iFixit have ripped open Huawei's first Google-free handset, the Mate 30 Pro, to find a serious battery powering the big screen and sophisticated camera setup.
The mobe has a 6.53" curved OLED display, a Huawei Kirin 990 processor with 8-core CPU, 16-core Mali-G76 GPU and a neural processing unit. It also has an underscreen fingerprint sensor, facial recognition hardware and gesture recognition.
[...] The gang was also keen on the fact that the USB port and its interconnect, the daughter board and SIM card slot, the loudspeaker and the optical fingerprint scanner are all modular and replaceable.
The phone's speaker uses the screen's structure to amplify sound instead of the normal earpiece speaker.
The screwdriver-botherers were pretty impressed overall with the phone's modular design. It also uses standard Philips screws. But they did note that a glued-down front and back does mean a slow start to any repair or replacement process, which resulted in a middle-of-the-road five out of 10 repairability score. Could be better, could be worse.
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
The U.S. government is letting American businesses work with Chinese tech giant Huawei for an additional three months, in a third delay to a ban enacted in May for national security reasons.
It is the third time the U.S. has extended a reprieve, which is meant to help ease disruption for Huawei customers. Many Internet and cellphone carriers in rural parts of the U.S. buy networking equipment from Huawei, and the temporary extension means they can keep their networks up to date.
"The Temporary General License extension will allow carriers to continue to service customers in some of the most remote areas of the United States who would otherwise be left in the dark," said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a statement.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
America's broadband watchdog has told telcos they cannot use government subsidies to buy any more Huawei or ZTE equipment.
The FCC is also mulling extending this ultimatum to include the continued use of the Chinese manufacturers' gear, meaning cellular and internet providers will have to replace their installed Huawei and ZTE boxes, as well as vow not to purchase any of the kit, if they wish to receive funding from the US government.
Specifically, the five-member commission voted unanimously on Friday to bar US telcos from using cash from the Universal Service Fund to purchase stuff made by either of the Chinese telecoms giants.
The USF is an $8.5bn nationwide fund that subsidizes telcos that provide service in rural and poor areas, schools, and libraries. Even the larger network providers tap into this piggy bank, so the crackdown on Huawei and ZTE purchasing reaches right across the market.
[...] The decision comes on the heels of what was seen as a reprieve of sorts for Huawei when, earlier this week, the FTC granted a third extension on the trade ban on the switch slinger, letting certain US companies continue to do business with the biz. One of those corporations, Microsoft, just announced it was going to be able to continue selling its software to Huawei.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
[...] But in the US and UK the rollout of 5G networks has been hampered by an international row over one of the most important suppliers of 5G equipment, China's Huawei.
Industry analysts like Edison Lee, an analyst from financial services group Jefferies, see the US pressure on Huawei as an attempt to break China's potential dominance of the global 5G market.
"The tech war is based on America's argument that China's technological advances have been built upon stolen intellectual property rights, and heavy government subsidies, and their belief that Chinese telecom equipment is not safe, and is a national security threat to the US and its allies," he says.
"As Huawei and [fellow Chinese firm] ZTE increasingly dominate the global telecom equipment market, the western world will be more vulnerable to Chinese spying," Lee adds.
Huawei has always strongly denied that its technology can be used for spying. While western nations worry about one of the key suppliers of 5G technology, China is racing ahead with its 5G rollout. On 31 October Chinese telecom companies launched 5G services in more than 50 Chinese cities, creating one of the world's largest 5G networks. Huawei has built an estimated 50% of the network.
CBC News has found Huawei's financial ties to Canadian universities total more than $56 million. But there are no federal guidelines around how these investments should be managed and disclosed, and that raises questions about who will own the findings of the research and the resulting patents.
[...] "Frankly, the government of Canada has fallen down catastrophically," says Christopher Parsons, a senior research associate at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which studies the way information is used, and misused, across technologies. "No one knows exactly what they should be doing."
Parsons, who is also the managing director of the Telecom Transparency Project, says the government's failure to set out policy guidelines for private sector funding has made it difficult for universities, which rely on that funding to stay at the forefront of wireless research and, in turn, attract top students.
Huawei says it is one of the biggest funders of academic research in Canada. Google, Microsoft, Rogers and Bell are among the others but declined to provide CBC News with any figures. Like Huawei, they are not required to disclose funding details.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/huawei-academic-funding-in-canada-1.5372310
Canadian universities pwned by big corp: does anyone else remember when universities and governments did research without the financial 'help' of corporations?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Thursday December 05 2019, @11:39PM (3 children)
WTF did you think they would do? Take it lying down, or shoveling money into their own research? Considering their own research is based on stealing US based tech, and they produce, what, 3-6x the engineers we do, who could possibly be surprised by this?
The lawsuit buys them time, while their plethora of engineers figure out how to make their products even better.
Not seeing how we can win the Orange One's tech war against China. In fact, pretty happy I'm retired and my kids are Firemen. They make way too much money for what they do but damned if that fire 3 blocks over will get sub-contracted to China.
Bad decisions, great stories
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday December 06 2019, @12:43AM
If you think my comment above is funny then I hope you are retired, like I am. Otherwise, I suspect in 10-15 years you are in for a shock.
Bad decisions, great stories
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @10:20AM (1 child)
You hit on it, but I think you didn't get emphasis to what the real problem is.
China has already deployed 5G alongside an increasing number of best-in-world systems. For instance they also have the world's largest radio telescope system. [wikipedia.org] That's not just a matter of 'do the same but make it bigger' - there are various technical challenges that emerge with scaling up astronomical technologies in particular. They're also now building the world's largest particle accelerator and more. China's economy is enormous and growing vastly faster than ours. About 30% larger [wikipedia.org] than ours in terms of spending power, and growing by 6% per year compared to 2%. And their political parties instead of recruiting politicians with charisma and law degrees, are recruiting engineers and scientists.
They're still definitely playing catch up in a lot of fields, and their ultra rapid-pace of progress has obviously involved extensive 'borrowing' of technologies from other nations. But I think we're now starting to reach that inflection between borrowing and creating. And unless we got off our collective ass somehow, we're simply going to be left behind. We're looking at the emergence of a technocracy of 1.4 billion mostly united individuals against a wtfocracy of 0.33 billion mostly divided individuals. Not hard to see where this gonna head. This is why we're increasingly seeing corporations and countries start to 'defect' to the other side. And this is only going to accelerate unless something changes hard and fast. At the current pace the world and geopolitical balance we know today is going to change, sharply in the relatively near future. Will is not even the right word - we're already seeing these changes happen today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @08:14AM
Then why does Australia keep sending money to China and giving it third world concessions? From what you are saying they are no longer a 'third world' country.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 06 2019, @12:09AM
That is a fun Previously list, and I didn't make it this time. The Huawei saga has been a wild ride.
I don't see them winning this fight at all. If they push the issue too hard they'll just get slapped down by an executive order.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @12:41AM
Yep. Just like the hundreds of other foreign vendors that supply digital infrastructure to the federal government.
If the FCC is going to get into the infosec business, perhaps it can start by explaining its current contempt for American civil rights on the Internet? Just saying. If there is a policy, perhaps it should be written down. Like, ya know, in a law or something?
No, the fed shouldn't be using foreign gear. But China is just one of many. So why is THIS criminal negligence somehow more of a big deal than the rest of the criminal negligence in federal I.T.?
FCC reinvents jingoism. Film at 11.