Caught between US ban and China pleas, India in a quandary over Huawei

This has prompted India to set up labs to test both Chinese and western manufactured equipment in the two sectors.
Caught between US ban and China pleas, India in a quandary over Huawei

NEW DELHI: India is in a quandary over letting Huawei participate in setting up its 5G infrastructure — Both the US authorities and Indian intelligence agencies have reservations on the use of the Chinese built gear; but user companies and China itself is lobbying in favour of Huawei, making it extremely difficult for India to take a final call.

The US administrations, besides having advised India to shun Huawei as it could pose a security risk, has now written to the Indian government warning that any Indian company found supplying equipment or products of American origin to Huawei or its associated companies would face action.

The US has already banned Huawei over security concerns and Washington has been pressuring other countries to follow suit.

Till now, India has not allowed Huawei to participate in 5G trials that are currently on as a precursor to the country’s auctioning of 5G spectrum or airwaves. An interministerial committee is looking into the issue and the decision may be as much political as it could be technical.

Top officials said that India may also look at the British model, which in compromise has kept Huawei out of the core 5G system backbone, to protect British defence and government networks.

However, Britain has allowed telecom firms to use Huawei gear in a way that limits its access to the core 5G infrastructure. 

Indian intelligence agencies always had their doubts about Chinese gears.

However, tests in electronic labs set up by India has till now not revealed any spyware that would allow Huawei or other Chinese gear-makers to spy on the telecom switches and other hardware they have supplied to India.

“There have been cases of data traffic patterns, which were considered suspicious on Huawei equipment, but as yet it has not been proven to be cases of monitoring by Huawei,” said Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad, co-founder of Advanced Technologies Group. 

India, like many other countries using Chinese power and telecom gear for its basic infrastructure, has long been suspicion of the cheap buys. There have been allegations that these could be remotely controlled from a Chinese site. This has prompted India to set up labs to test both Chinese and western manufactured equipment in the two sectors.

However, many Indian telcos that are used to Huawei gear, are enamoured of its lower costs. The Chinese government itself is in favour of Huawei’s entry into India's 5G network.

China on Thursday urged India to make an “independent judgement” about Huawei’s operations in the country without being guided by the US ban on the telecom giant’s products and grant an “unbiased and nondiscriminatory” environment to Chinese businesses.

Tech dependency

Except for Jio, which mostly uses Samsung gear, other telecom operators in India, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, use a mix of Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson equipment.

“Though in recent years, it has mostly been Huawei,” said Prasad.

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