Tue, Jul 07, 2020 page10

• France encourages Huawei avoidance

  STANCE ELSEWHERE: A British official said that US sanctions ‘could have a significant impact on the reliability of Huawei equipment’ and whether Britain can use it safely

  • Reuters, PARIS and LONDON
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  The head of the French cybersecurity agency ANSSI on Sunday said that there would not be a total ban on using equipment from Huawei Technologies Co (華為) in the rollout of the French 5G telecoms network, but that it was pushing French telecoms to avoid switching to the Chinese company.

  “What I can say is that there won’t be a total ban,” Guillaume Poupard told Les Echos newspaper in an interview. However, “for operators that are not currently using Huawei, we are inciting them not to go for it.”

  The US government has urged its allies to exclude the Chinese telecoms giant from the West’s next-generation communications, saying that Beijing could use it for spying.

  Huawei has denied the charges.

  Sources in March said that France would not ban Huawei, but would seek to keep it out of the core mobile network, which carries higher surveillance risks because it processes sensitive information such as customers’ personal data.

  France’s decision over Huawei’s equipment is crucial for two of the country’s four telecoms operators, Bouygues Telecom and SFR, as about half of their current mobile network is made by the Chinese group.

  “For those that are already using Huawei, we are delivering authorizations for durations that vary between three and eight years,” Poupard said in the interview.

  State-controlled Orange SA has already chosen Huawei’s European rivals Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB.

  Poupard said that from next week, operators that have not received an explicit authorization to use Huawei equipment for the 5G network can consider a non-response after the legal deadline as a rejection of their requests.

  The choice was made to protect French independence and not as an act of hostility toward China, Poupard said.

  “This is not Huawei-bashing or anti-Chinese racism,” Poupard said. “All we’re saying is that the risk is not the same with European suppliers as with non-Europeans.”

  Separately, US sanctions designed to restrict the ability of Huawei to source advanced microchips for 5G equipment is likely to have a significant effect on the reliability of the supplier, British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden said yesterday.

  Britain in January granted Huawei a limited role in its future 5G networks, but officials at the British National Cyber Security Centre have since studied the effects of the US measures that were announced in May.

  Officials are drawing up proposals to stop installing Huawei equipment in as little as six months, the Sunday Telegraph reported, in a reversal of a decision earlier this year.

  Dowden told Sky News that he would not comment on the report, but said that the UK’s decision was not “not fixed in stone.”

  “If the US imposes sanctions, which they have done, we believe that could have a significant impact on the reliability of Huawei equipment and whether we can use it safely,” he said.
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