The US Government reportedly pressuring AT&T to end ties with Huawei
2018 was supposed to be Huawei’s “coming out party” as the company looked to finally enter the US market, and expand on its successes as it currently sits as the third biggest OEM behind Samsung and Apple. However, those plans have all but been demolished after AT&T backed out of a deal to make Huawei smartphones more accessible to those in the US.
The initial reports claimed that AT&T was getting a lot of pressure and push back from the US government over privacy concerns, and a new report from Reuters is suggesting that AT&T is getting even more pressure to cut all ties with Huawei.
While on the front this may seem a bit unorthodox and pointless, but when you look at who AT&T is working with to expand its 5G network capabilities, the picture becomes a bit more clear. Huawei and AT&T have been working together on building AT&T’s infrastructure for the upcoming push to a world with 5G networks, but the US government is concerned about National security consequences due to Huawei being based in China.
The consequences for AT&T listening to the government and backing down from its partnership with Huawei is two-fold. First, the company could experience issues when attempting to work with the US government in the future, as well as slowing down the development of a 5G network. With Verizon and T-Mobile already working on bringing their own 5G networks into the fold, this move could really damage AT&T as the company would have to look elsewhere to build its infrastructure.
I get it. The US government doesn’t want the Chinese spying on the US citizens, but the issue is that Huawei devices are currently offered on 45 of the 50 largest carriers across the WORLD. The company has become a trusted brand across almost every market (except for the US), and the company is making strides to continue offering great devices to keep up with the competition.
Let us know what you think about this latest report and what you think AT&T should do regarding the predicament between Huawei and the US government.