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A source close to the Trump administration claims that the President is planning to sign an executive order next week which would ban equipment built by Chinese companies to be used by US network operators. Political is citing three different sources which all corroborate the same report. Analysts claim that there’s a big push by the administration to get the executive order signed before Mobile World Congress which is scheduled for the last week February in an effort to send a clear message to the mobile industry that cybersecurity will be a priority for the US.
The reason behind the executive order is to ensure that the Chinese government doesn’t have a hand in building our 5G networks in the US. Huawei and ZTE are two of the leading network infrastructure players on the globe, but both companies have close ties to the Chinese government. While the US security services have not been able to provide any clear evidence that either of these companies have used their communications infrastructure around the globe for nefarious purposes, both have been on the hot seat recently for breaking trade embargoes, stealing trade secrets, fraud and a whole lot more.
Cutting out Huawei, ZTE and other companies from bigging on the massive 5G buildout here in the US will likely have a significant impact on the financials of these companies but it will also increase the costs network providers will pay for their 5G deployment – a cost which will ultimately be pushed on to consumers.
Source: Politico
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