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Huawei’s CEO going off-script to rage at US carriers was the best speech of CES

127 points by ALee 9y ago

u801e 9y ago
I've never understood why people buy phones from the carriers rather than from a retail store or online and insert the SIM (for GSM carriers).
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  Cost. Many people can't afford hundreds of dollars all at once for a phone, but can afford to subsidize it through a contract.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    The subsidy days are (mostly) gone. Now they pay the full MSRP, but financed at 0% interest for 2 years. In fact, they pay more than MSRP if you consider the fact you're forced to attach a phone plan which costs more than the equivalent plan from an MVNO using the same network.
    - coralreef 9y ago
      The time value of money is still a subsidy. The average American consumer has stacks of debt (credit card, student loan, etc) which makes fronting $1k for a phone more difficult.
      - BoorishBears 9y ago
        If you can’t afford 1k for a phone you shouldn’t finance it. We’re not talking about a house or a car, it’s a 1,000$ phone that can have 90% of it's features replicated by a phone that cost as much as the down payment on the 1k phone that someone with maxed out credit will have to pay.
        coralreef 9y ago
        The people buying the phones usually already know this. Consumers gonna consume.
  - u801e 9y ago
    Yes, but this seems to be unique to the US market. In countries where people don't earn as much, getting a subsidized phone via the carrier doesn't seem to be the case.
- JeanSebTr 9y ago
  In my case, it's an economic reason. The monthly discount that Canadian carriers offer for bringing your own phone is generally lower than the value of the phone. So why would I pay upfront if the model I want is available from the carrier?
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    All the Canadian carriers are such assholes I can't bring myself to sign a long term contract with them. It's also nice to have an unlocked retail phone. Much cheaper to get a SIM from a vending machine at the airport anywhere outside North America than to suffer Canadian carriers' insane roaming charges.
    - JeanSebTr 9y ago
      Since December 1, 2017, they can't be sold locked and phone bought before that can be unlocked for free.
      - robotresearcher 9y ago
        That's good news!
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > I've never understood why people buy phones from the carriers rather than from a retail store or online and insert the SIM (for GSM carriers). Cultural momentum. In the US, phones used to be heavily subsidized by carriers via contracts. Even if you brought your own phone, and don't think the carriers gave you a big enough discount to make it economically justifiable, so the practice of buying "unlocked" phones never took off and was more of a niche thing. That's all changed recently, with the death of long-term contracts, but old habits die hard.
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    Verizon also used to not allow unlocked phones on their network. If the phone was not Verizon branded you were forbidden from using it. I'm not sure if that's still the case.
    - untog 9y ago
      That was also complicated by Verizon using a CDMA network - most third party phones are GSM and wouldn't work on their network. Luckily LTE means we're seeing the back of all this, though I think you still need a CDMA phone for areas that do not yet have LTE.
    - sbalea 9y ago
      No longer the case. However, they only allow devices that are certified to work on their network, and that means support for legacy CDMA. But if your phone is unlocked and it has the necessary bits, you can certainly bring it in. Also, all smartphones they currently sell are unlocked, as part of a deal with the FCC when they won the rights to some 700Mhz band
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Same reason people buy a house with a mortgage and not straight cash.
  - u801e 9y ago
    Most people will get a mortgage to buy a house. Most people aren't going to get a loan to make a $300 to $500 purchase.
    - mcphage 9y ago
      > Most people aren't going to get a loan to make a $300 to $500 purchase. At 0% interest, why wouldn't you?
      - u801e 9y ago
        Depending on what credit card one uses for the purchase, one could get anywhere from 1.5% to 5% cash back (assuming they pay the balance in full before the credit card statement due date).
        sokoloff 9y ago
        I pay my cell phone bill with a credit card anyway, so I still get the points, independent of how I bought the device. (I also use Ting and have bought the phones outright, but even previously on Sprint and AT&T with subsidized phones, I still got the points every month in addition to the device subsidy.)
      - philsnow 9y ago
        A 2 year loan for $500 is 24 chances for me to forget to make a payment, for a glitch to cause my bank / cc to not pay them on time, for them to somehow not notice that I have paid them when I actually did, etc etc etc, any of which will either result in me eating some costs (completely eliminating the benefit of the 0% loan) or burning 1-10 hours on the phone with some clowns. What am I losing, whatever I would have made by investing that $500 over the same time period ? We're talking less than $50. I'm very lucky to be at a point in my life where I'd gladly give away "$50, 2 years from now" in exchange for "don't have to think about it, ever again".
- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  You don't understand why people would pick a small monthly fee over a four figure purchase price for a phone? Because very few people have the savings or extra money to do so.
  - evanlivingston 9y ago
    4 figures? What phones are people buying? I bought my Huawei honor 8 for 300 and I pay 50 a month for a plan.
  - u801e 9y ago
    > four figure purchase price for a phone? There are phones that are quite a bit cheaper than that.
- untog 9y ago
  Because the carrier's don't/didn't offer any discount for bringing your own device. If they're effectively offering you a 0% loan over two years to pay off a phone it's not the craziest thing to take them up on that offer. Plus, if it breaks you can just take it to your nearest store. A lot more convenient than mailing it somewhere.
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    I haven't seen a "free phone" in a _long_ time (two years or so). Now it's "pay X dollars a month 24 months".
    - untog 9y ago
      Right. Which, if it adds up correctly, is basically a 0% loan for the price of the phone.
      - votepaunchy 9y ago
        Unless you pick up a $100/$200/$300 rebate for buying through your carrier.
  - rconti 9y ago
    My ATT plan has BYOD so I save $15 per line over 2 years (=$360) to not have to worry about arguing with a carrier over whether I can unlock MY device. Surprise, it's about the cost of the 'subsidy'. Back when they had subsidies, that is, I think now you just lease to own. All I know is, I'm not getting anything for free with their garbage so I'll just by my own. If my phone costs $1000, I damn well want to know what it's costing me and consciously make that decision, not have it hidden in a payment.
Justin_K 9y ago
Their Nexus 6P wasn't great... and they didn't honor their warranty for my brother. https://www.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p-bootloop-fix/ https://www.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p-bootloop-fix/ These guys aren't ready for a US roll out.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
gshulegaard 9y ago
Shoe doesn't feel as nice on the other foot I guess. In all honestly from the few products I see that come across the various tech review outlets I follow, Huawei seems to do some decent work. But the whole economic situation with China is complicated...mostly due to their own heavy handed protectionist policies. From a cursory following, it certainly seems like the Chinese market in particular is biased at regulatory levels against foreign companies.
- hacknat 9y ago
  Yeah. I was about to say don’t get mad at the West, because we don’t trust you, get mad at your own government. If China was a free and open society to the point where I could simply understand the relationship their businesses have with their government than we don’t have a problem, but that relationship is just too murky for my liking right now.
  - interstitial 9y ago
    yes, but that doesn't give you self-righteous, America-shaming browning points on the internet.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  Yeah, he should come back with a 50:50 joint venture with a US manufacturer.
- willow9886 9y ago
  Agreed. Where is Google in China? FB? YouTube? Twitter? GitHub? ... the list goes on and on. This decision does affect US consumers, but not in a significant way...we still have access to cheap smartphones. Chinese companies can't have their cake and eat it too!
  - kharms 9y ago
    If there is an effect on the US consumer, it's at the wireless service level not phone level. >Huawei engineers and executives also make regular visits to U.S. carriers to show off new technology, and the potential cost savings are “significant”—sometimes even half off competitors’ prices, says one former U.S. telecom executive. >U.S. wireless service costs $41 per month per customer on average, according to the data and analytics firm—second only to Canada, which also largely discourages Huawei equipment. In the U.K., where Huawei is allowed but closely scrutinized, the average wireless bill is $23 a month. https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-long-seen-as-spy-threat-rolled-over-u-s-road-bumps-1515453829 https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-long-seen-as-spy-threat-...
propman 9y ago
Read on the WSJ a few days ago how Huawei got started was straight stealing the exact same patented technology as an American firm and then could produce more cheaply thanks to government help. America has to act now to prevent this kind of stuff, not just place a bandaid. Huawei is now cheaper and better than competitors but their model has been something Chinese and let's be honest most other countries have tried to implement. Props to them though
- tristanj 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#History It's not really a secret. The history section of their wikipedia article explains they were founded as a way to reverse engineer foreign technology and are state sponsored. I guess many people don't know this?
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  I think they used to literally sell routers with pirated versions of Cisco IOS. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60-minutes-torpedoes-huawei-in-less-than-15-minutes.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60...: > Folklore within the routing and switching community was that Huawei stole router product secrets from Cisco, down to the chassis, IOS and all the way down to the spelling errors in the manuals. Many have said it for years, but 60 Minutes put it on worldwide television tonight for everyone to know. Cisco did file suit and it was settled out of court, so we will never know what really happened. But Huawei did it, they know it, we know and Cisco knows it. Otherwise they would have never settled the court case.
rgbrenner 9y ago
2012 US House Intel Committee report on Huawei (and ZTE) that led to them being labeled a national security threat (this was a year long investigation into Huawei): https://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/huawei-zte%20investigative%20report%20(final).pdf https://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/... Skip to page 7 for the investigation.. or bottom of page 12 where it starts talking about Huawei. Some of it could be political cover.. but some of it sounds quite solid. Like the part about their business in Iran, which they admit having and refused to discontinue, possibly violating US sanctions.
- Jerry2 9y ago
  That report was just NSA being mad for not being able to intercept Huawei routers just like they intercepted and hacked Cisco routers. [1] And let's not forget NSA's Juniper router NSA backdoor hack [2]. So the NSA banned Huawei since they wouldn't play ball with them and decided to spread FUD about Huawei instead... so that companies buy hacked/backdoored routers instead. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... [2] https://www.wired.com/2015/12/juniper-networks-hidden-backdoors-show-the-risk-of-government-backdoors/ https://www.wired.com/2015/12/juniper-networks-hidden-backdo...
  - ganoushoreilly 9y ago
    Who says they don’t have exploits for their tech? Just as I would expect the PLA to have multiple exploits for us tech. Step out of the bubble you live in, espionage is real and so far there’s enough compelling evidence to question their motives. Just as there were constant rublings with Kaspersky, look where that went. Not only did their reaction turn out to be an attempt st saving face, researches showed that simply putting specific classification markings on blank files triggered the av to submit copies of the files.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    This is such a bizarre comment. Why would the NSA even try to get a Chinese company controlled by a former PLA officer to "play ball" and install implants? What reason is there to think the NSA can't intercept Huawei routers.* Why do you think the NSA makes decisions based on being "mad" (was it replaced by a seven year old without informing me)? * It'd probably be more difficult for them to get at a Huawei, since the routers don't go through US export inspections, just like everything else made outside the US. However, the could still have the cooperation of or agents working for the shipping companies to help them in those cases.
mabbo 9y ago
As a Canadian, I'm sure I know a large number of former Nortel employees who would just love to get their hands on a Huawei phone. Nortel did the R&D, and Huawei released identical devices, all the while someone in China was hacking into their systems and downloading their designs.[0] But sure, it's Huawei who are the victims in all of this. [0] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-aga...
chapium 9y ago
“...was the best speech of CES” is a bit subjective for a headline.
- eropple 9y ago
  ...It's an editorial.
aroman 9y ago
I'm sorry, but this strikes me as ridiculously ironic. A Chinese company complaining that they're having a hard time reaching consumers in the US market? Is that not EXACTLY the same situation that countless American companies (esp. "Big Tech") face when trying to enter the Chinese market? To pass this off as "US is hurting its consumers by eliminating choice" is laughable vs the INSANE concessions US companies need to make to operate in China — which create hugely unfair advantages for domestic Chinese companies. Is privacy the big reason? The article cites privacy as one of the pressures that caused AT&T to abort the deal — US companies don't want to let the government eavesdrop on their products, and Chinese government doesn't want US products and services that prevent the Chinese government from eavesdropping.
- urda 9y ago
  It's really hard for me to feel bad for them at all. China loves to: - Spy, eavesdrop wherever they can. Forcing vendors to turn over server controls to them. - Constantly duplicate, steal other companies work. - Create unfair advantages of China companies vs US companies. - Can't forget the Great China Firewall! Huawei is untrustworthy anyway, good riddance. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_concerns_in_the_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_...
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    Is ATT really better? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A Does the US not do any of those things? e.g. https://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-actually-intercepted-packages-to-put-backdoors-1491169592 https://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-actually-intercepted-packages-to... Dude called out the US for generally lacking on the mobile front, and I don't think he's wrong. Our mobile broadband speeds are terrible for a developed country largely because of the mobile carrier (and wired broadband) oligopoly. If the CEO of Nokia said the same thing, would it be any more or less valid just because of the policies of the country that they're based in? edit: typo
    - Chaebixi 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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pkaye 9y ago
They are the same company with a fatal boot loop design flaw on my $500 Nexus N6. That thing failed right after the 1 year warranty expired and they tell me there is no way to fix it as there are no replacement parts available. If it failed after 2 years I could have lived with it but 1 year is too short for outright failure. Right now I'm trying to get a claim through my credit card extended warranty to get my money reimbursed.
gerbilly 9y ago
Maybe it would be better for China to be allowed to spy on our phones. China is halfway around the world and many of us will never go there. On the other hand using phones provided by US carriers means the government here is probably spying on you. China, however will probably never send people to knock your door down based on intel they gather from your phone.
throwign1234 9y ago
I worked for a startup that worked with huawei for a few months -- we installed a heavy analytics platform onto their android devices for quite some time, receiving a disturbing amount of very granular (read: personally identifying) information to s3/bigquery in american servers. The company already was working on existing malware projects that were extremely profitable, some over 10 years old. The deal fell through shortly after android 7, these changes [1] were pretty significant . The application remains on some smaller brands of 'obamaphone' and select huawei devices. It would not surprise me if they found another company to install a similar application. I do not trust this company, they were very strange to work with as far as politics were concerned even with guidance from Chinese native project managers. [1] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/07/changes-to-trusted-certificate.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/07/changes-to...
mmagin 9y ago
I'll start to feel sorry for Huawei after they apologize for repeatedly stealing IP from other companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Intellectual_property_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Intellectual_property_r...
Feniks 9y ago
American telecom market is a joke. Only very few Americans buy their own phone. So you have to make deals with the big carriers if you want to reach beyond the technophile crowd. Those carriers are shit.
rdlecler1 9y ago
Makes me wonder if China’s threat to halt treasury purchases was in response to this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/china-officials-are-said-to-view-treasuries-as-less-attractive https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/china-off... Seems to me that the US should use more of it’s leverage ($400b annual trade deficit) to ensure better market access to China.

127 points by ALee 9y ago

I've never understood why people buy phones from the carriers rather than from a retail store or online and insert the SIM (for GSM carriers).

JoshTriplett 9y ago
Cost. Many people can't afford hundreds of dollars all at once for a phone, but can afford to subsidize it through a contract.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  The subsidy days are (mostly) gone. Now they pay the full MSRP, but financed at 0% interest for 2 years. In fact, they pay more than MSRP if you consider the fact you're forced to attach a phone plan which costs more than the equivalent plan from an MVNO using the same network.
  - coralreef 9y ago
    The time value of money is still a subsidy. The average American consumer has stacks of debt (credit card, student loan, etc) which makes fronting $1k for a phone more difficult.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      If you can’t afford 1k for a phone you shouldn’t finance it. We’re not talking about a house or a car, it’s a 1,000$ phone that can have 90% of it's features replicated by a phone that cost as much as the down payment on the 1k phone that someone with maxed out credit will have to pay.
      - coralreef 9y ago
        The people buying the phones usually already know this. Consumers gonna consume.
- u801e 9y ago
  Yes, but this seems to be unique to the US market. In countries where people don't earn as much, getting a subsidized phone via the carrier doesn't seem to be the case.
JeanSebTr 9y ago
In my case, it's an economic reason. The monthly discount that Canadian carriers offer for bringing your own phone is generally lower than the value of the phone. So why would I pay upfront if the model I want is available from the carrier?
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  All the Canadian carriers are such assholes I can't bring myself to sign a long term contract with them. It's also nice to have an unlocked retail phone. Much cheaper to get a SIM from a vending machine at the airport anywhere outside North America than to suffer Canadian carriers' insane roaming charges.
  - JeanSebTr 9y ago
    Since December 1, 2017, they can't be sold locked and phone bought before that can be unlocked for free.
    - robotresearcher 9y ago
      That's good news!
Chaebixi 9y ago
> I've never understood why people buy phones from the carriers rather than from a retail store or online and insert the SIM (for GSM carriers). Cultural momentum. In the US, phones used to be heavily subsidized by carriers via contracts. Even if you brought your own phone, and don't think the carriers gave you a big enough discount to make it economically justifiable, so the practice of buying "unlocked" phones never took off and was more of a niche thing. That's all changed recently, with the death of long-term contracts, but old habits die hard.
- aidenn0 9y ago
  Verizon also used to not allow unlocked phones on their network. If the phone was not Verizon branded you were forbidden from using it. I'm not sure if that's still the case.
  - untog 9y ago
    That was also complicated by Verizon using a CDMA network - most third party phones are GSM and wouldn't work on their network. Luckily LTE means we're seeing the back of all this, though I think you still need a CDMA phone for areas that do not yet have LTE.
  - sbalea 9y ago
    No longer the case. However, they only allow devices that are certified to work on their network, and that means support for legacy CDMA. But if your phone is unlocked and it has the necessary bits, you can certainly bring it in. Also, all smartphones they currently sell are unlocked, as part of a deal with the FCC when they won the rights to some 700Mhz band
oh_sigh 9y ago
Same reason people buy a house with a mortgage and not straight cash.
- u801e 9y ago
  Most people will get a mortgage to buy a house. Most people aren't going to get a loan to make a $300 to $500 purchase.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > Most people aren't going to get a loan to make a $300 to $500 purchase. At 0% interest, why wouldn't you?
    - u801e 9y ago
      Depending on what credit card one uses for the purchase, one could get anywhere from 1.5% to 5% cash back (assuming they pay the balance in full before the credit card statement due date).
      - sokoloff 9y ago
        I pay my cell phone bill with a credit card anyway, so I still get the points, independent of how I bought the device. (I also use Ting and have bought the phones outright, but even previously on Sprint and AT&T with subsidized phones, I still got the points every month in addition to the device subsidy.)
    - philsnow 9y ago
      A 2 year loan for $500 is 24 chances for me to forget to make a payment, for a glitch to cause my bank / cc to not pay them on time, for them to somehow not notice that I have paid them when I actually did, etc etc etc, any of which will either result in me eating some costs (completely eliminating the benefit of the 0% loan) or burning 1-10 hours on the phone with some clowns. What am I losing, whatever I would have made by investing that $500 over the same time period ? We're talking less than $50. I'm very lucky to be at a point in my life where I'd gladly give away "$50, 2 years from now" in exchange for "don't have to think about it, ever again".
ryguytilidie 9y ago
You don't understand why people would pick a small monthly fee over a four figure purchase price for a phone? Because very few people have the savings or extra money to do so.
- evanlivingston 9y ago
  4 figures? What phones are people buying? I bought my Huawei honor 8 for 300 and I pay 50 a month for a plan.
- u801e 9y ago
  > four figure purchase price for a phone? There are phones that are quite a bit cheaper than that.
untog 9y ago
Because the carrier's don't/didn't offer any discount for bringing your own device. If they're effectively offering you a 0% loan over two years to pay off a phone it's not the craziest thing to take them up on that offer. Plus, if it breaks you can just take it to your nearest store. A lot more convenient than mailing it somewhere.
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  I haven't seen a "free phone" in a _long_ time (two years or so). Now it's "pay X dollars a month 24 months".
  - untog 9y ago
    Right. Which, if it adds up correctly, is basically a 0% loan for the price of the phone.
    - votepaunchy 9y ago
      Unless you pick up a $100/$200/$300 rebate for buying through your carrier.
- rconti 9y ago
  My ATT plan has BYOD so I save $15 per line over 2 years (=$360) to not have to worry about arguing with a carrier over whether I can unlock MY device. Surprise, it's about the cost of the 'subsidy'. Back when they had subsidies, that is, I think now you just lease to own. All I know is, I'm not getting anything for free with their garbage so I'll just by my own. If my phone costs $1000, I damn well want to know what it's costing me and consciously make that decision, not have it hidden in a payment.

Justin_K 9y ago

Their Nexus 6P wasn't great... and they didn't honor their warranty for my brother. https://www.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p-bootloop-fix/ https://www.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p-bootloop-fix/ These guys aren't ready for a US roll out.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

gshulegaard 9y ago

Shoe doesn't feel as nice on the other foot I guess. In all honestly from the few products I see that come across the various tech review outlets I follow, Huawei seems to do some decent work. But the whole economic situation with China is complicated...mostly due to their own heavy handed protectionist policies. From a cursory following, it certainly seems like the Chinese market in particular is biased at regulatory levels against foreign companies.

hacknat 9y ago
Yeah. I was about to say don’t get mad at the West, because we don’t trust you, get mad at your own government. If China was a free and open society to the point where I could simply understand the relationship their businesses have with their government than we don’t have a problem, but that relationship is just too murky for my liking right now.
- interstitial 9y ago
  yes, but that doesn't give you self-righteous, America-shaming browning points on the internet.
Chaebixi 9y ago
Yeah, he should come back with a 50:50 joint venture with a US manufacturer.
willow9886 9y ago
Agreed. Where is Google in China? FB? YouTube? Twitter? GitHub? ... the list goes on and on. This decision does affect US consumers, but not in a significant way...we still have access to cheap smartphones. Chinese companies can't have their cake and eat it too!
- kharms 9y ago
  If there is an effect on the US consumer, it's at the wireless service level not phone level. >Huawei engineers and executives also make regular visits to U.S. carriers to show off new technology, and the potential cost savings are “significant”—sometimes even half off competitors’ prices, says one former U.S. telecom executive. >U.S. wireless service costs $41 per month per customer on average, according to the data and analytics firm—second only to Canada, which also largely discourages Huawei equipment. In the U.K., where Huawei is allowed but closely scrutinized, the average wireless bill is $23 a month. https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-long-seen-as-spy-threat-rolled-over-u-s-road-bumps-1515453829 https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-long-seen-as-spy-threat-...

propman 9y ago

Read on the WSJ a few days ago how Huawei got started was straight stealing the exact same patented technology as an American firm and then could produce more cheaply thanks to government help. America has to act now to prevent this kind of stuff, not just place a bandaid. Huawei is now cheaper and better than competitors but their model has been something Chinese and let's be honest most other countries have tried to implement. Props to them though

tristanj 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#History It's not really a secret. The history section of their wikipedia article explains they were founded as a way to reverse engineer foreign technology and are state sponsored. I guess many people don't know this?
Chaebixi 9y ago
I think they used to literally sell routers with pirated versions of Cisco IOS. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60-minutes-torpedoes-huawei-in-less-than-15-minutes.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2223272/cisco-subnet/60...: > Folklore within the routing and switching community was that Huawei stole router product secrets from Cisco, down to the chassis, IOS and all the way down to the spelling errors in the manuals. Many have said it for years, but 60 Minutes put it on worldwide television tonight for everyone to know. Cisco did file suit and it was settled out of court, so we will never know what really happened. But Huawei did it, they know it, we know and Cisco knows it. Otherwise they would have never settled the court case.

rgbrenner 9y ago

2012 US House Intel Committee report on Huawei (and ZTE) that led to them being labeled a national security threat (this was a year long investigation into Huawei): https://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/huawei-zte%20investigative%20report%20(final).pdf https://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/... Skip to page 7 for the investigation.. or bottom of page 12 where it starts talking about Huawei. Some of it could be political cover.. but some of it sounds quite solid. Like the part about their business in Iran, which they admit having and refused to discontinue, possibly violating US sanctions.

Jerry2 9y ago
That report was just NSA being mad for not being able to intercept Huawei routers just like they intercepted and hacked Cisco routers. [1] And let's not forget NSA's Juniper router NSA backdoor hack [2]. So the NSA banned Huawei since they wouldn't play ball with them and decided to spread FUD about Huawei instead... so that companies buy hacked/backdoored routers instead. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... [2] https://www.wired.com/2015/12/juniper-networks-hidden-backdoors-show-the-risk-of-government-backdoors/ https://www.wired.com/2015/12/juniper-networks-hidden-backdo...
- ganoushoreilly 9y ago
  Who says they don’t have exploits for their tech? Just as I would expect the PLA to have multiple exploits for us tech. Step out of the bubble you live in, espionage is real and so far there’s enough compelling evidence to question their motives. Just as there were constant rublings with Kaspersky, look where that went. Not only did their reaction turn out to be an attempt st saving face, researches showed that simply putting specific classification markings on blank files triggered the av to submit copies of the files.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  This is such a bizarre comment. Why would the NSA even try to get a Chinese company controlled by a former PLA officer to "play ball" and install implants? What reason is there to think the NSA can't intercept Huawei routers.* Why do you think the NSA makes decisions based on being "mad" (was it replaced by a seven year old without informing me)? * It'd probably be more difficult for them to get at a Huawei, since the routers don't go through US export inspections, just like everything else made outside the US. However, the could still have the cooperation of or agents working for the shipping companies to help them in those cases.

mabbo 9y ago

As a Canadian, I'm sure I know a large number of former Nortel employees who would just love to get their hands on a Huawei phone. Nortel did the R&D, and Huawei released identical devices, all the while someone in China was hacking into their systems and downloading their designs.[0] But sure, it's Huawei who are the victims in all of this. [0] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-aga...

chapium 9y ago

“...was the best speech of CES” is a bit subjective for a headline.

eropple 9y ago
...It's an editorial.

aroman 9y ago

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as ridiculously ironic. A Chinese company complaining that they're having a hard time reaching consumers in the US market? Is that not EXACTLY the same situation that countless American companies (esp. "Big Tech") face when trying to enter the Chinese market? To pass this off as "US is hurting its consumers by eliminating choice" is laughable vs the INSANE concessions US companies need to make to operate in China — which create hugely unfair advantages for domestic Chinese companies. Is privacy the big reason? The article cites privacy as one of the pressures that caused AT&T to abort the deal — US companies don't want to let the government eavesdrop on their products, and Chinese government doesn't want US products and services that prevent the Chinese government from eavesdropping.

urda 9y ago
It's really hard for me to feel bad for them at all. China loves to: - Spy, eavesdrop wherever they can. Forcing vendors to turn over server controls to them. - Constantly duplicate, steal other companies work. - Create unfair advantages of China companies vs US companies. - Can't forget the Great China Firewall! Huawei is untrustworthy anyway, good riddance. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_concerns_in_the_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_...
- seanp2k2 9y ago
  Is ATT really better? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A Does the US not do any of those things? e.g. https://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-actually-intercepted-packages-to-put-backdoors-1491169592 https://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-actually-intercepted-packages-to... Dude called out the US for generally lacking on the mobile front, and I don't think he's wrong. Our mobile broadband speeds are terrible for a developed country largely because of the mobile carrier (and wired broadband) oligopoly. If the CEO of Nokia said the same thing, would it be any more or less valid just because of the policies of the country that they're based in? edit: typo
  - Chaebixi 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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pkaye 9y ago

They are the same company with a fatal boot loop design flaw on my $500 Nexus N6. That thing failed right after the 1 year warranty expired and they tell me there is no way to fix it as there are no replacement parts available. If it failed after 2 years I could have lived with it but 1 year is too short for outright failure. Right now I'm trying to get a claim through my credit card extended warranty to get my money reimbursed.

gerbilly 9y ago

Maybe it would be better for China to be allowed to spy on our phones. China is halfway around the world and many of us will never go there. On the other hand using phones provided by US carriers means the government here is probably spying on you. China, however will probably never send people to knock your door down based on intel they gather from your phone.

throwign1234 9y ago

I worked for a startup that worked with huawei for a few months -- we installed a heavy analytics platform onto their android devices for quite some time, receiving a disturbing amount of very granular (read: personally identifying) information to s3/bigquery in american servers. The company already was working on existing malware projects that were extremely profitable, some over 10 years old. The deal fell through shortly after android 7, these changes [1] were pretty significant . The application remains on some smaller brands of 'obamaphone' and select huawei devices. It would not surprise me if they found another company to install a similar application. I do not trust this company, they were very strange to work with as far as politics were concerned even with guidance from Chinese native project managers. [1] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/07/changes-to-trusted-certificate.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/07/changes-to...

mmagin 9y ago

I'll start to feel sorry for Huawei after they apologize for repeatedly stealing IP from other companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Intellectual_property_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Intellectual_property_r...

Feniks 9y ago

American telecom market is a joke. Only very few Americans buy their own phone. So you have to make deals with the big carriers if you want to reach beyond the technophile crowd. Those carriers are shit.

rdlecler1 9y ago

Makes me wonder if China’s threat to halt treasury purchases was in response to this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/china-officials-are-said-to-view-treasuries-as-less-attractive https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/china-off... Seems to me that the US should use more of it’s leverage ($400b annual trade deficit) to ensure better market access to China.