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Comment by strooper | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes it feels like the conflict is partially about the 5G technology implementation.

What does 5G technology have that is making everyone so sensitive? Will it require complete overhaul of the existing hardware (so big business opportunity)? Will it enable something extraordinary, apart from the data speed, that can not be done with the existing network technologies? I am curious...

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Huawei sells 5G equipment. Think the equivalent of routers, switches but for cellular network. If they have backdoors then China can intercept and disrupt communication across many countries. That's the concern in a nutshell.

They did the same with 3G/4G, they totally outpriced Nokia Siemens Networks. Why ban it now?

The current administration sees China as a huge threat, the previous several administrations (republican and democrat) did not. Or if they did, they thought the way to deal with the threat was through economic cooperation.

China has been a threat to US interests in the Pacific for decades. Now China is the regional hegemonic power which dwarfs the weak US Pacific partnership. China's international influence will continue to grow and they will likely achieve their 100 year plan. That's not really fearmongering, China has plenty of problems but they will eventually succeed.

I like how you take an overly expansive and hegemonic definition of US interests and make it into another country's problem completely. Nice work.

Because in 5G it is demonstrably ahead technically and for the first time holds a significant number of patents. This is considered a "national security concern" because well, you know, if America isn't number one (USA! USA!) it is obviously because somebody else cheated, and America not being number one is obviously equivalent to the end of the world. /s

Yeah the nightmare scenario goes a bit like: 1) Huawei's tech gets embedded deeply in US telecoms as 5G takes over as well as everyone claims it will and includes some buried controls mandated by the Chinese government 2) tensions between US and China inevitably come to a head over something 3) the Chinese government uses that backdoor to cripple US wireless networks 4) various sorts of hell break loose depending on how much 5G has supplanted other wireless industrial control solutions.

Even something simpler as a command to shut down the equipment from remote at China's bidding.

I believe it is more about money and power than being a security concern.

Huawei is becoming too powerful for US interests. 5G market makes them more powerful and gives them a better reputation as a high-tech company.

Killing it will pushes China’s tech many years back.

It's a cold war, and just like the original Cold War, money and power is inextricable from security because the business of America is business.

Needs new infrastructure, so its big spend. Plus whoever builds the physical network will inevitably have backdoors

And much larger infrastructure at that. 5x or even 10x the number of current cell sites for 5G microcells.

Imagine the tracking opportunities!

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