Earlier this year, sources told Reuters that while France wouldn’t ban Huawei, it would try to keep its gear out of the country’s core mobile networks. These networks carry the personal data belonging to customers of the country’s wireless companies which means that keeping Huawei equipment from these networks is of paramount importance. That’s because Huawei has been accused of using its networking gear to spy on consumers and corporations and send the data to Beijing. No evidence of this has ever been discovered and Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations.
What France decides to do will be critical to half of the country’s four major wireless providers; about 50% of the networks employed by carriers Bouygues Telecom and SFR use Huawei’s technology. Orange, which is controlled by the French government, has decided to use equipment supplied by Huawei rivals Nokia and Ericsson.
The head of ANNSI said that starting next week, wireless operators who have yet to receive authorization to use Huawei equipment for their 5G networks should consider a non-response to be a rejection of their request. Poupard stated, “This is not Huawei bashing or anti-Chinese racism. All we’re saying is that the risk is not the same with European suppliers as with non-Europeans.”
