4 ms·

Dumb question: why is Huawei the only available provider of 5G technology? Are all other companies too far away?

Jefro118 7y ago
It's the most viable at the lowest price point I believe. Other companies like Ericsson can also provide 5G but I think Huawei is furthest ahead yes. This has really been poor planning on the part of the UK government going back a few years - this decision has been coming for a long time but not enough effort seems to have gone into creating a better set of choices. Instead we are accepting Huawei despite believing they are a bad actor and only now starting to seriously plan for reducing our dependence on them.
ddeck 7y ago
They are not. From the article: >Yet Europe is home to two of the world’s leading vendors, Ericsson and Nokia; Samsung offers yet another alternative from a trustworthy democracy.
- gabaix 7y ago
  Why are there no US vendors? It is rare to see a cutting-edge sector without the US.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - sangnoir 7y ago
    Cisco and Motorola are not interested in this market, and Lucent is no longer American. To answer your question: maximizing shareholder value is why there are no US vendors (that in turn, might be because of lack of competition behavior between Verizon and AT&T leading to lowered investment in infrastructure)
- thesimon 7y ago
  Though I'm not sure if they are more secure, they also have offices in China.
roywiggins 7y ago
Huawei is apparently just far and way cheaper.
lwkl 7y ago
No for example Swisscom in Switzerland is using Ericsson for their 5G network and Huawei for their IP core transport network. A lot of households got upgraded to Huawei G.Fast technology for example. So it's also about price. Huawei is just cheaper than Nokia and Ericsson. I don't know how the technology of the different providers compare but it probably won't be that much of a difference. It probably also depends on your existing 4G infrastructure since 5G can sometimes be rolled out as a software upgrade using existing antennas. So if your existing infrastructure uses Huawei you don't want to switch.
- blackrock 7y ago
  What is the price point? Exactly how much cheaper is Huawei vs. Nokia/Ericsson? Some rumors say that Huawei has 4,000 software engineers that they can throw at a problem, like their current goal to replace Google services. If an average software engineer in China makes $10,000 USD, vs. an average software engineer at Google making $160,000 USD. Then Huawei will spend $40 million USD, vs. Google spending $640 million USD. That’s a pretty significant difference. Huawei’s operating cost is 6% of Google’s. Huawei can afford to throw a lot of human brain power at solving an engineering problem. And especially when a lot of Chinese companies are operating in start-up mode and working 60+ hours a week.
  - vikinghckr 7y ago
    > an average software engineer at Google making $160,000 USD Average software engineer at Google makes well over $200K USD.

It's the most viable at the lowest price point I believe. Other companies like Ericsson can also provide 5G but I think Huawei is furthest ahead yes. This has really been poor planning on the part of the UK government going back a few years - this decision has been coming for a long time but not enough effort seems to have gone into creating a better set of choices. Instead we are accepting Huawei despite believing they are a bad actor and only now starting to seriously plan for reducing our dependence on them.

ddeck 7y ago

They are not. From the article: >Yet Europe is home to two of the world’s leading vendors, Ericsson and Nokia; Samsung offers yet another alternative from a trustworthy democracy.

gabaix 7y ago
Why are there no US vendors? It is rare to see a cutting-edge sector without the US.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sangnoir 7y ago
  Cisco and Motorola are not interested in this market, and Lucent is no longer American. To answer your question: maximizing shareholder value is why there are no US vendors (that in turn, might be because of lack of competition behavior between Verizon and AT&T leading to lowered investment in infrastructure)
thesimon 7y ago
Though I'm not sure if they are more secure, they also have offices in China.

roywiggins 7y ago

Huawei is apparently just far and way cheaper.

lwkl 7y ago

No for example Swisscom in Switzerland is using Ericsson for their 5G network and Huawei for their IP core transport network. A lot of households got upgraded to Huawei G.Fast technology for example. So it's also about price. Huawei is just cheaper than Nokia and Ericsson. I don't know how the technology of the different providers compare but it probably won't be that much of a difference. It probably also depends on your existing 4G infrastructure since 5G can sometimes be rolled out as a software upgrade using existing antennas. So if your existing infrastructure uses Huawei you don't want to switch.

blackrock 7y ago
What is the price point? Exactly how much cheaper is Huawei vs. Nokia/Ericsson? Some rumors say that Huawei has 4,000 software engineers that they can throw at a problem, like their current goal to replace Google services. If an average software engineer in China makes $10,000 USD, vs. an average software engineer at Google making $160,000 USD. Then Huawei will spend $40 million USD, vs. Google spending $640 million USD. That’s a pretty significant difference. Huawei’s operating cost is 6% of Google’s. Huawei can afford to throw a lot of human brain power at solving an engineering problem. And especially when a lot of Chinese companies are operating in start-up mode and working 60+ hours a week.
- vikinghckr 7y ago
  > an average software engineer at Google making $160,000 USD Average software engineer at Google makes well over $200K USD.