TheNewsGuru

Tag: Huawei

  • Sweden blocks Huawei and ZTE from 5G infrastructure

    Sweden blocks Huawei and ZTE from 5G infrastructure

    Operators bidding for frequencies in Sweden’s 5G networks have been banned from using equipment from Chinese tech giants ZTE and Huawei, a government agency said.

    The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) said the four firms selected were Hi3G Access, Net4Mobility, Telia Sweden and Teracom, a partnership between Swedish telecommunications firm Tele 2 and Norway’s Telenor.

    The first auction was set to open on Nov. 10.

    The PTS said the firms had been selected in accordance with legislation that entered into force on Jan.1.

    The Swedish Armed Forces and the Swedish Security Service were consulted to ensure that the use of radio equipment in these bands does not cause harm to Sweden’s security.

    ZTE and Huwawei have been brought into question in other parts of Europe as rival firms allege they have close links to China’s military.

    If existing infrastructure for central functions is to be used to provide services in the relevant frequency bands, products from Huawei and ZTE must be phased out latest by Jan. 1, 2025, “the PTS said.

    The PTS added that if central functions are dependant of staff or functions placed in foreign countries, this must be phased out by Jan. 1, 2025 and replaced with staff based in Sweden.

  • U.S. warns world telecom industry against Huawei after UK ban

    U.S. warns world telecom industry against Huawei after UK ban

    The U.S. on Wednesday warned telecom companies around the world against doing business with the embattled Chinese technology giant, Huawei.

    The Department of State in a statement, said those doing business with the firm should consider themselves fraternising with “human rights abusers”.

    “Telecommunications companies around the world should consider themselves on notice.

    “If they are doing business with Huawei, they are doing business with human rights abusers,” the statement said.

    It announced visa restrictions on some employees of Hauwei and other unidentified Chinese tech firms for allegedly facilitating human right violations.

    It alleged that certain Huawei employees “provide material support” to the Chinese government “that commits human rights abuses”.

    The administration of President Donald Trump has been pressuring allies to cut Huawei off their 5G networks over cyber security concerns.

    Trump accuses the Chinese government of using the company to conduct cyber espionage, an accusation Huawei denied.

    In 2019, the U.S. government threatened to severe intelligence sharing ties with allies that patronise Huawei 5G products.

    Wednesday’s visa restriction announcement came barely 24 hours after the United Kingdom banned the company from its 5G networks.

    Welcoming the ban, Pompeo said the UK had joined “a growing list of countries from around the world that are standing up for their national security”.

    In June, Pompeo declared that “the tide is turning against Huawei as citizens around the world are waking up to the danger of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.”

  • BREAKING: UK bans 5G equipment from Huawei

    BREAKING: UK bans 5G equipment from Huawei

    The United Kingdom (UK) has banned telecommunications companies from buying 5G equipment from Huawei.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Oliver Dowden, UK’s Digital Secretary made the government’s decision known on Tuesday, while addressing the House of Commons.

    He also revealed the government’s decision mandating the telecoms companies to remove all the Chinese firm’s 5G kit from their networks by 2027.

    “To be clear, from the end of this year, telecoms operators must not buy any 5G equipment from Huawei,” he said.

    Dowden, however, said the decision to strip Huawei of its role in the UK’s 5G network by 2027 “had not been easy” but said, “it is the right one”.

    He admitted the removal of Huawei from the UK’s 5G network will slow down the rollout of 5G by 2-3 years and cost hundreds of millions of pounds more.

    The development follows similar sanctions placed on Huawei in the United States. The US claims Huawei poses a national security threat.

    However, Huawei has denied the allegations.

  • Huawei tackles US govt. over rule changes

    Huawei has opposed the amendments made by the US Department of Commerce to its foreign direct product rule that seem to target Huawei specifically.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the US government had in May 2019 added Huawei to the Entity List and had continued to blacklist the technology company, especially as the race for 5G networks thicken.

    Recently, the US government made amendments to its foreign direct product rule, with Huawei saying the decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and that it threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide.

    In a statement, Huawei said it is undertaking a comprehensive examination of the new rule, saying that it’s business will inevitably be affected by the new rule.

    The statement reads: Huawei categorically opposes the amendments made by the US Department of Commerce to its foreign direct product rule that target Huawei specifically.

    “The US government added Huawei to the Entity List on May 16, 2019 without justification. Since that time, and despite the fact that a number of key industrial and technological elements were made unavailable to us, we have remained committed to complying with all US government rules and regulations. At the same time, we have fulfilled our contractual obligations to customers and suppliers, and have survived and forged ahead against all odds.

    “Nevertheless, in its relentless pursuit to tighten its stranglehold on our company, the US government has decided to proceed and completely ignore the concerns of many companies and industry associations.

    “This decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide. This new rule will impact the expansion, maintenance, and continuous operations of networks worth hundreds of billions of dollars that we have rolled out in more than 170 countries.

    “It will also impact communications services for the more than 3 billion people who use Huawei products and services worldwide. To attack a leading company from another country, the US government has intentionally turned its back on the interests of Huawei’s customers and consumers. This goes against the US government’s claim that it is motivated by network security.

    “This decision by the US government does not just affect Huawei. It will have a serious impact on a wide number of global industries. In the long run, this will damage the trust and collaboration within the global semiconductor industry which many industries depend on, increasing conflict and loss within these industries.

    “The US is leveraging its own technological strengths to crush companies outside its own borders. This will only serve to undermine the trust international companies place in US technology and supply chains. Ultimately, this will harm US interests.

    “Huawei is undertaking a comprehensive examination of this new rule. We expect that our business will inevitably be affected. We will try all we can to seek a solution. We hope that our customers and suppliers will continue to stand with us and minimize the impact of this discriminatory rule”.

  • Huawei to make more contribution in 2020 to ICT capacity building in Ethiopia

    China’s tech giant Huawei plans to enhance its contribution to capacity building for Ethiopians in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector this year, targeting increased number of beneficiaries.

    Huawei’s Ethiopia Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Zhou Tianbing, told Xinhua on Monday that Huawei would continue its activities helping the East African country improve education development with most advanced technologies, with committed efforts to bridge the digital divide for Ethiopians.

    Huawei has launched and been implementing different initiatives to improve the ICT capacity of young people in Ethiopia, in particular, and Africa in general.

    “With a view of building ICT capacity and further improve ICT development, Huawei has launched three major initiatives dubbed Seeds for the Future, ICT competition, and ICT Talent Ecosystem, and these projects have benefited tens of thousands of students at the levels of elementary, secondary and higher education,” Zhou said.

    Recalling that Huawei commenced its Seeds for Future project in Ethiopia in 2016, whereby 10 most talented students are sent to China every year for short-term training, the CEO said that Huawei, in cooperation with the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE), would continue to select 10 students from top universities across the country.

    Since 2018, Huawei has been undertaking its project of ICT Competition, in which 2,357 students from 22 universities of Ethiopia participated in the year 2019, with increased number of participants, which was a little more than 500 in 2018.

    And one teacher and three students have been qualified for the final competition to be held in China.

    In 2020, Huawei plans to engage more than 3,000 students from 28 universities to show their talents in the ICT competition.

    On the ICT Talent Ecosystem of Ethiopia, Huawei signed an agreement with MoSHE in January 2017 for joint construction of ICT Academies in 37 public higher education institutions.

    The two sides also signed agreement in January 2019 to jointly construct ICT Academies in technical and vocational education and training (TVET), the first time in Ethiopia to extend Huawei Academy to TVET.

    Huawei has launched courses in more than 20 universities and TVETs, and has trained more than 1,500 ICT students.

    With the initiative of ICT Academy, Huawei has a plan to open courses this year in nine more universities and three more TVETs in Ethiopia.

    Reiterating that Huawei Ethiopia attaches great importance to helping the country improve education development with more advanced ICT, Zhou said his company would further strengthen its support in the year 2020.

    In 2015, Huawei worked with 65 schools in Ethiopia for the implementation of SchoolNet by deploying 5,200 cloud desktops in the schools.

    In 2017, Huawei SchoolNet Education Cloud deployed 25,000 cloud desktops for a total of 310 schools in 9 regions and 2 cities of the country.

    By now, Huawei’s Education Cloud Solution has covered 365 secondary schools, and 10 universities, with more than 30,000 cloud desktops, which have benefited more than 27,000 teachers and students, according to the CEO.

    Huawei has also worked together with more than 10 top universities in Ethiopia, where it has constructed the most advanced data centres, fixed and wireless school networks and Education Cloud for them.

    He said that so far, more than 300,000 college students had become beneficiaries of digital research and development, digital education and distant education empowered by Huawei.

  • Huawei ban: Nigeria ‘boasts’ to roll out 5G networks itself

    Huawei ban: Nigeria ‘boasts’ to roll out 5G networks itself

    Following U.S. calls for countries to follow its footsteps to ban Huawei Technologies on national security grounds, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said Nigeria will roll out 5G networks itself, “talking about the equipment and technology”.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Osinbajo stated this on Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, when quizzed, after his opening remarks at the event, about the ongoing international dispute regarding some global technology firms and the issue of 5G.

    He explained that even though Nigeria is yet to roll out 5G, “we do not have those complications (comparatively) in taking decisions in that regard. But, we practically welcome every company that wants to do business with us in Nigeria. Huawei is in Nigeria and so are all the other technology companies.

    “We haven’t gone through any kind of decision making for rolling out the 5G technology. As a matter of fact we are going to roll out 5G ourselves. Talking about the equipment and technology; how did the Chinese get it? How did anyone else get the technology? We will do it ourselves”.

    Speaking further, the Vice President said the potential, effort and impact being made by Nigerians in technology can enable the country roll out indigenous technology solutions that can transform the global space.

    Osinbajo, who was optimistic about the possibility to developing homegrown capacity in the technology space said government would leverage the efforts and resourcefulness of youths to actualize its potentials in the sector.

    “Our potential in technology and entertainment has been attracting huge attention. First is the market, at 174 million GSM phones, we are among the top ten telephone users in the world, and we have the highest percentage of people who use internet on their phones in the world.

    “We are also number two in mobile internet banking in the world, and 17 million Nigerians are on Facebook. Microsoft has announced that it will establish a 100 million dollar African Development Centre in Nigeria.

    “Second is the ever-growing number of technology startups, young digital entrepreneurs who are creating solutions to value chain and logistics challenges and creating thousands of jobs in the process. Andela, a software company training software developers for many Fortune 500 companies received a $24m dollar investment from Facebook,” he said.

  • Huawei profit jumps despite adversity

    Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company, Huawei profits jumped by 25% in 2018 despite efforts by government of the US to curtail its business.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports President Donald Trump last year signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which prohibits the US government and its contractors from buying certain telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from Huawei.

    The bill also prohibits the US government from buying products from a handful of other Chinese communications companies, including ZTE.

    The ban covers components and services deemed “essential” or “critical” to any government system.

    Also, the US has been lobbying its allies to shun Huawei’s products on national security grounds, saying Chinese law requires the company to provide it with intelligence on its foreign clients whenever requested.

    However, the Chinese tech giant 2018 earnings jumped by 25% to 59.3 billion yuan, about $8.7 billion.

    While the 2018 earnings is powered majorly by Huawei’s booming smartphone business, sales revenue fell short of earlier company forecast, but still rose by 19.5% to 721 billion yuan ($105 billion).

    At a press conference on Friday, rotating chairman Guo Ping said sales of telecom equipment to carriers fell 1.3% in 2018.

    Guo said the decline was mainly due to investment cycles in the global telecom industry.

    Huawei sold more than 200 million smartphones in 2018, boosting revenue in the company’s consumer business to about 349 billion yuan ($52 billion) — an increase of more than 45%.

    Huawei sells more telecommunications equipment than any other company in the world, and its smartphone business is growing faster than that of Samsung or Apple.

  • U.S. threatens to cut intelligence sharing with Germany

    The U.S. has issued warning to Germany that they would scale back the exchange of intelligence if their European ally allows Chinese companies to help build a high-speed internet network.

    A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Berlin told dpa that having “untrusted vendors’’ in Germany’s 5G network “could raise future questions about the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive communications.

    “This could in the future jeopardise nimble cooperation and some sharing of information.’’

    The comments came after the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the U.S. raised the issue of Chinese firms’ involvement, particularly the telecommunications giant Huawei, in a construction of the 5G network in a letter to the German economy minister.

    According to newspaper, which had access to the letter, U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell wrote that U.S.-German cooperation could only continue at its current level if Chinese firms were excluded from the construction of the network.

    While the U.S. Embassy said it could not comment on diplomatic communications, “the U.S. position on 5G network security is well known.’’

    The U.S. has been pushing back against China’s technological expansion by asking that other countries refuse to adopt Huawei’s 5G infrastructure, which Washington says poses security threats.

    Germany’s Ministry of Economics confirmed it had received a letter from the U.S. and that it would soon respond.

     

  • Ban on Huawei: Germany says 5G security requirements apply to all vendors

    Germany’s federal network regulator set new security criteria on Thursday for vendors supplying equipment for 5G networks, saying the same rules should apply to all providers.

    The regulator equally imbibed on toughening scrutiny of gear used in critical infrastructure.

    The criteria, updated following a national debate over whether to heed U.S. calls to ban Huawei Technologies on national security grounds, made no mention of the Chinese company.

    Instead, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) stressed that critical equipment should only be used after scrutiny and certification by Germany’s BSI federal cybersecurity watchdog.

    “Critical core components may only be procured from trustworthy vendors and manufacturers,” the BNetzA said in a statement.

     

  • Shipments of computing devices into Africa, Middle East to hit 19.5m units

    Overall shipments of personal computing devices (PCD) into the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will a total of 19.5 million units for 2019 as a whole, according to latest insights from International Data Corporation (IDC).

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the personal computing devices market, which is made up of desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets, declined 5.0% year on year in Q4 2018.

    The global technology research and consulting firm’s Quarterly PCD Tracker shows that shipments fell to around 5.6 million units for the three-month period.

    According to the research, the top three vendors in the regional PC market, HP, Lenovo and Dell, maintained their respective positions, with each of them gaining share on the corresponding quarter of 2017.

    While HP with a market share of 28.9% in Q4 2017 improved to 32.3% for Q4 2018, Lenovo with 19.5% in Q4 2017 improved to 20.7% for Q4 2018, and Dell with 14.9% Q4 2017 improved to 17.1% for Q4 2018, others in the market with a share of 36.8% in Q4 2017 record a decline with 29.9% market share for Q4 2018.

    In the tablet segment, Samsung more than double its market share in the region year on year and maintain its position in top spot with Apple climbing up to number two, while Huawei dropped to number three.

    Samsung with tablet market share of 17.9% in Q4 2017 improved to 37.9% for Q4 2018, Apple with 11.2% in Q4 2017 declined to 8.3% for Q4 2018, Huawei with 12.3% Q4 2017 declined to 7.7% for Q4 2018, with others in the market with a share of 58.7% in Q4 2017 declining to 46.1% for Q4 2018.

    According to the research, the overall personal computing devices market is expected to remain close to flat over coming years, with PCs experiencing very slow growth and tablets experiencing a gradual decline.

    “Given the growing use of smartphones and the corresponding shift away from PCs and tablets, it is unrealistic to expect either segment to return to the shipment volumes seen several years ago,” the researchers noted.