Bell, Telus to use Nokia and Ericsson, not Huawei, in building their 5G networks | Hacker News Reader

Bell, Telus to use Nokia and Ericsson, not Huawei, in building their 5G networks

cbc.ca

330 pointsCalmStorm191 comments

For a long period of time, these companies would not publicly commit to going ahead without Huawei for 5G, and despite pressure from the US (and warnings from CSIS), the Canadian government still has not made an announcement about whether Huawei would be restricted as a supplier.

Many Canadians were frustrated by this, feeling like they didn't want Huawei networks but that they weren't being heard.

It occurs to me now that had any of those steps been taken before reaching a deal with Ericsson, it would have given Ericsson a much stronger bargaining position and they probably could have charged a lot more.

This isn't the first time where I've felt frustrated, unheard, and kept in the dark, only to later realize that there may have been important considerations that I just wasn't aware of.

Just goes to show that Canadian telecom policy is controlled by telecoms, not by the government. It's very cozy and regularly functions to discourage competition.

Canadian telecom policy still revolves around "facilities-based competition", where it's believed that new entrants should build out a new network. It's designed to fail. Even the incumbents, Bell and Telus, share a 3G/4G mobile network to avoid redundant infrastructure. Ironically, the two contracted Huawei and Nokia to build out this network: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up-wit...

Huawei was marketing 5G directly to Canadian consumers for a while, but was careful to never mention/imply that 5G could lower pricing. That would be a thermonuclear threat to telecoms with dire consequences.

I agree with all your points, but does this go to show that?

I'm not aware of what was going on behind the scenes. It could easily have been that the Canadian government told the telecoms a long time ago that they wouldn't be allowed to use Huawei, but kept this secret for the sake of contract negotiations. Do you know this not to be the case?

> It could easily have been that the Canadian government told the telecoms a long time ago that they wouldn't be allowed to use Huawei, but kept this secret for the sake of contract negotiations.

I figure the government ran its Huawei-ban proposal by the telcos and they balked and said: "don't regulate it, we'll just not choose them". It's a direct access to government influence that the public could only dream of. Meanwhile, the public gets told "well, if you don't like being ignored when new laws are created/passed, vote for someone else in [0-4] years".

Basically, just pissed that CDN telecoms get to craft the law (or lack thereof) in their favour.

Wouldn't it have been more in their favour to choose Huawei, at presumably much lower cost? It's not like consumers who didn't like that idea could switch to someone else. The only explanation I can think of is that the government called the shots here, while sparing the telecos from a tough negotiating position.

I think the directive came to not use Huawei, and the telecoms structured it as “ok, we just won’t select Huawei” instead of “Gov bans Huawei”.

> Just goes to show that Canadian telecom policy is controlled by telecoms, not by the government. It's very cozy and regularly functions to discourage competition.

It's easy to say that, but Canada has a smaller population than California, but spread over the surface area larger than that of the United States. How many carriers, and how much competition, can you possibly expect in that environment? Especially in an industry that requires so much infrastructure.

Canada at the national level has Bell, Telus and Rogers/Fido. There's a few more regional players like Freedom Mobile, and then there's Videotron in Quebec.

Then on top of that there's the former Crown Corporation (now subsidiary of Bell/BCE) NorthwesTel, which provides services in the Territories (i.e the north of the north, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut).

> It's easy to say that, but Canada has a smaller population than California, but spread over the surface area larger than that of the United States.

That is an extremely misleading statement. Approximately 75% of Canada's population lives within 150km of the US border, and even that is not a uniform distribution , there are dense urban population clusters.

Totally, I know that, but even with that, the density isn't comparable. I mean, how many Californias can you fit into this coverage map? [1] I'm guessing a lot of Californias -- Alberta alone is 1.67 Californias by land area.

And then there's the geography. You can drive to each major point in California in a couple hours, but it's not as easy to get to Moose Factory or Fort Mac, let alone lay the backhaul to supply the towers in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

[1] https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Our_network_coverage

Also here Finland I am paying 22 euros for unlimited 150mbit/s 4g connection and population density is pretty similar to Ontario.

And even then, most of the Canadian population are East, and South -- "South" in a Canadian sense.

Around 30% of the total Canadian population is in the Greater Toronto Area, and if you toss in the most populous Quebecois (Montreal-Trois-Rivieres-Quebec) cities that number is around 50%.[1]

You see the same thing in the US and Australia as well -- the Eastern coasts were settled first, and that's where the population is to this day.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada_by_provin... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis

I'd expect rates as good as Iceland's, which has an even lower population density than Canada, and covers a much higher percentage of their country.

Canadians could only dream of their rates.

Compare the coverage maps though. They have 199 towers total and cover a tiny, teeny strip of roadway around the perimeter [1]. On the other hand, Bell [2]. I'll give you one guess which of these networks costs more per capita to operate.

[1] https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=274&MNC=1&type=LTE&latitu...

[2] https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Our_network_coverage

Coverage 100x the population across 100x the landmass would cost the same per capita.

That's not taking into account geography, though. The entirety of the coverage in Iceland is along a thin ring of highway that encircles the island, and a big dense infill in Reykjavik. It's not the same at all.

I'd bet pricing would be comparable if Bell's network just extended along the Trans Canada Highway, and in each major city. Even that's not a fair comparison since Iceland is literally encircled, so you never need to drive more than half the length to get between any two points.

But Iceland has nearly nationwide coverage with a lower population density than Canada: https://vodafone.is/english/mobile-coverage/

And Iceland isn’t exactly flat/seismologically stable.

If anything, Canadian rates should be far cheaper than Iceland’s because Canada telcos only cover a small fraction of the landmass.

Outside of AB and Sask, the coverage usually is along the trans-Canada and populated pockets.

That cellmapper.net site you're looking at has crap data. Look at their Bell map, it also shows coverage over like 4 highways and nothing else.

-Canadian telecom policy still revolves around "facilities-based competition", where it's believed that new entrants should build out a new network.

Didn’t CRTC force the incumbents to sell wholesale network access to new players like Freedom Mobile?

It was at punitive pricing, to the point where you feared going off network. For example, Wind (Freedom's name at the time) charged 5c/mb for data ($50/gb). And Wind absolutely would not let you connect to the incumbents network if you were in the "Home" zone.

I think the voice pricing out-of-network was okay, but the incumbents definitely cooked the books on their costs on data.

They once had a plan for $39 with 6gb data and unlimited calls/LD in-network and anywhere in USA. But it had small limits for out-of-network in Canada.

Meanwhile, they incumbents charge cheap-enough prices to American or French providers so they can allow their subscribers roam in Canada with many gb included in the base plan. A French subscriber roaming in Canada would have 5x the data as a local plan at half the cost.

I remember reading the roaming deals are sweetheart deals that goes both ways. So similarity, the French telecoms would charge Canadian incumbents a very low price while roaming on France.

> Just goes to show that Canadian telecom policy is controlled by telecoms, not by the government

I worked for a (very) large Canadian telcom for 4 years.

What you said is absolutely 100% correct.

In my region my employer was forced to allow competition in the internet space, and they submitted rates to the CRTC that were astronomical. The CRTC replied and said they would force them to lower the rates, so my employer said they would stop building out their fibre network expansion.

The CRTC caved, the telco got it's way, and to this day the ISP with the largest operating area of any on the planet has zero competition.

People complain about the lack of cell phone providers here in the US, but damn! Canada is way worse. The cost of phone plans is outrageous and the major telecoms do everything in their power to stop new entrants from messing up their gravy train.

I think it's far more difficult to build a competitive network in Canada vs the US. Canada is as big as the US, but has 1/10th the population. Building and maintaining infrastructure for low-density population areas is extremely capital intensive. I am not saying the existing Telco oligopoly is a good or ideal situation. Just mentioning that US and Canada have some differences in this regard

Most of the low-density population areas aren't covered anyway. By landmass, it's single-digit percentages or low double-digit percentages of coverage (And often it's weak outside of urban/suburban area).

One of the least dense provinces, Saskatchewan, has some of the best pricing in the country because the government has yet to selloff the provincial telecom to private investors. Manitoba too before they decided to privatize and sell off to an incumbent.

And high-density is no panacea for cost. Tall concrete buildings everywhere can mean more infrastructure costs. Especially if regulations require you to fit infrastructure into the facade. Medium-density is the least engineering: Just put up a tower and call it a day. And in Canada, antenna permits are federal. Once issued, local govs can't stop you from putting up your monstrosity of white panels on a midrise or a big metal antenna.

But you don't have to just compare Canada against the USA. Australia or Iceland have rates that Canadians can only dream of, with similarly geo-population situations.

There's a reason we fight hard for our crown corperations out here in Saskatchewan, if this was left to the market we would be screwed. The farther away from populated centers you get, the harder it is to get decent service however. I grew up out in Melville, SK where the fastest connections at the time were 15mbps DSL connections (this was around the time that Google Fiber was starting to roll out elsewhere). Once you get farther out, copper isn't even an option so cellular and satellite links are needed. The only nice thing about fiber is digging up ditches is relatively cheap

Some of us are excited to see how systems such as StarLink develop, maybe bringing decent rural access to the network is in the cards.

Next time you make a page that requires 10Mb of assets before loading, please remember there are people dealing with terrible connections. I know my first 100mbps connection was a godsend.

+1 for SaskTel. I've done work for them on their monitoring systems, seemed like a decent org.

More imporatanly, as someone in AB I am jealous of their cheap phone plans...

> Australia or Iceland have rates that Canadians can only dream of, with similarly geo-population situations

I worked on the NBN in Australia -- they've got their fair share of ISP-related issues down under.

I agree with you in concept, but I don't know that the geography fully explains the discrepancy. As an example, there are government incentives to do the build out to more rural areas, but that might be true in the US as well.

We also tried to implement more carriers several years ago, with a wireless spectrum auction that reserved spectrum for new entrants. These startups tried to focus solely on urban areas with their build outs, and then could roam on the big 3, but struggled immensely. IIRC, one of the big complaints was we don't allow foreign ownership, which made it difficult to raise the immense capital needed for a proper build out. How much that plays into it I don't know, but unless Canadians want to put together a massive amount of capital it seems unlikely to force stronger competition.

Wind mobile was doomed because they were issued 1.7ghz spectrum. That’s going to make any urban-area buildout prohibitively expensive because it doesn’t penetrate well.

That's actually the inverse of the problem. Yes, 1.7Ghz doesn't penetrate well, but in cities you want density, because you have population density. Low band is still useful, but not nearly as advantaged as in rural areas.

In rural areas, using 1.7Ghz vs 600Mhz or 700Mhz spectrum means building 4x the amount of towers to cover the same square miles.

That's opex, capex *4. It's really expensive, with no benefits at all as you're not capacity constrained at all on radios/spectrum in rural areas.

Canadian and US urbanisation rates are essentially identical.

This isn't a case of looking at a map and population count whatsoever. It's an incredibly moot point when you look at where 95% of people live in both countries.

Coverage coast to coast along highways is the same distance but 1/10 the Canadians?

Australia has similar population size and density issues as Canada, and yet they manage to provide plans at 1/2 the price we pay here.

Australia is similar as well, most of the population is in few cities with huge empty outback. The rates here are around 25 USD for unlimited text and calls with around 30 gigs of data.

Right now in the UK I’m paying £30/month for unlimited 5G data. 30 day contract, 5G roaming in many European countries. I’ve seen download speeds as high as 400 Mbps.

Streaming games on my Mac from Google Stadia in perfect lag-free 1080p!

Right now in the UK I’m paying £8/month for 7GB 4G data, 30 day contract, EU roaming, unlimited calls and texts (Plusnet, SIM only).

Which works for me because I am mostly on wifi or (current situation notwithstanding) on a very short commute.

In my case, 5G is my WiFi! With the added benefit of being a battery-powered router (Huawei E6878) which I can take with me for fast WiFi wherever I need it. Why pay extra for wired broadband?

(7GB data would be no good at all for me - I'd burn through that in about 30 minutes!)

Wow, thanks for that. I just realised I was still paying £9.50 a month to Plusnet for much less. Took just 2 minutes to login and update the tariff (reduced the data too since I no longer have a commute). I wish they'd do this automatically but obviously it's not in their interests.

Giffgaff is really good about actually getting you on to a plan that suits you. They'll automatically update you to the latest plan at the price point you've set. They'll email you suggesting cheaper plan if you're not using all/most of your allowance. I've even had them gift me an extra GB of data when I went over my plan's allowance.

> ”Building and maintaining infrastructure for low-density population areas is extremely capital intensive.”

The solution is to share infrastructure in sparsely populated areas where it would be uneconomic for each operator to build it's own.

The UK, despite being vastly smaller and denser than Canada, has long had poor mobile coverage in rural areas.

The UK government is now requiring (and contributing funding towards) geographical 95% coverage by 2026. Operators will use shared rural infrastructure to achieve this.

https://www.mobileuk.org/shared-rural-network

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/shared-rural-network

Is it really though? I mean, it used to be.

Rogers wants $75/mth (CAD - $55 USD) for 10GB data and unlimited talk and text. Let's compare to the US:

- AT&T wants 65++ USD ($87 CAD) for a comparable plan.

- Verizon wants 70++ USD ($94 CAD) for a comparable plan.

- TMo wants 70 (all in) USD ($94 CAD) for a comparable plan.

And each network in Canada is dramatically better than AT&T and TMo, and roughly comparable to Verizon.

Back in the day, there was a huge difference, these days, it's kinda the same. I remember when the iPhone first came out and you could get an unlimited AT&T plan for $60/mth and Rogers wanted $120++. Those days are long past, though.

Wow, in Belgium you can get the same for around 15 EUR and in Italy you can get 50 GB for less than 10 EUR...

Yes, the US is one of the highest priced mobile markets in the world, so it is not exactly fair to compare to them. The rest of the world pays far lower rates than the US and Canada.

And in Romania you get 50GB for 2 EUR (basically the plan is unlimited data, but with speed limited to 256kbps after 50GiB.). The speeds are quite good too, I personally reached 100Mbps on 4G on my phone in some places.

The 5G plan includes 80GB traffic for the same package.

++++++++++

I'm actually using this 2EUR plan as my main internet service at the moment, as I temporarily moved to the country side. I could get a 1Gbps FTTH connection for around 10 EUR per month ( or cheaper for lower bandwidth), but so far I decided not to bother.

50GB did last me for 20 days, with a lot of video content, some repos downloaded, arch package updates etc. The 256kbps limit I'm experiencing now is more than ok for anything text-based but YouTube only works seamlessly/without buffering in 240p.

A friend of mine is Romanian, and it is impressive how good their telecommunications are managed. This is something many countries can learn from.

Here in the UK, the government has grand ambitions, but it doesn't really materialise. Most people with "fibre" broadband are limited to 20-60Mbps. Although if you live in a major city you can get 200-300Mbps.The infrastructure is ancient, and by taking half measures they spend more in the long run for far less.

This is something that annoys me about 5G. It will cost a fortune to roll out (making data so expensive it won't be fully utilised). 4G on my phone right now is 35Mbps. 5G is more a tickbox exercise than bringing better connectivity to people.

</rant>

Connectivity was one of the major reasons I was looking at flats in Cluj a little while ago, even roaming on a UK SIM up in the mountains I was getting rock-solid 4G at all times (and even down in Salina Turda).

I have 4 lines with TMobile and pay $140 a month.

https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/magenta

Unlimited everything... Even 5 gig of data when in Canada.

I don't think Rogers, Telus or Bell have anything close to that.

I was running the numbers based on a single line. Didn't bother doing the family plan options, but I do know the big3 in Canada have family plan options too. TMo is even in the US as huge outlier. I too enjoy a $40/mth unlimited plan with 5 of my favorite loose affiliates.

Not really family plans these days. Any additional lines are charged as normal and you just get the convenience of a single bill - no discount.

Or at least that's what the rogers rep told me.

Wat? T-Mobile wants US$35 (incl taxes!) for a much better plan. Includes Netflix even. And they only start throttling at 50gb.

https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans

The Canadian networks are “better” because every Canadian rations their usage. I’d wager that Canadian networks are wayyyy underprovisioned compared to even the crappiest US network.

That's if you want 4 lines.

Check out the top div on that page, you'll see they conveniently want to sign up both you and everyone you know to qualify for that rate. I priced it for a single line in both the US and Canada. With that in mind TMo is a huge outlier in the US, too, and John Legere is responsible for singlehandedly dragging AT&T and VZW kicking and screaming into the 21st century of pricing over the last 5-6 years.

They also have far and away the worst network in the US, trust me, I've used them for years -- and love them. Their network is still hot garbage though. Frankly the best TMobile network you can get is when you roam onto Rogers, Bell or Telus in Canada.

I would be curious about the underprovisioned thing... that's very possible. I travel to the US frequently (well before the world turned upside-down) and I would say in 8/10 US cities I visit I experience frustratingly worse cell coverage than I do at home. Slow speeds, call drops, etc. This isn't just on my personal phone but also on all of the cellular devices we bring with us. (we provide equipment for trade-shows, etc. and much of it runs 4G). I hadn't considered network provisioning as a possible cause of this.

Parent post has it backwards, the US networks are way underprovisioned, which is why they're just so darn slow -- well, that and Shannon's law. The Canadian networks are at minimum adequately provisioned.

I moved from an unremarkable city in Canada to San Francisco and the cellular service here is terrible. Only Verizon is comparable and even then that just means it is reliable. T-Mobile is a joke in SF.

Just wait until you try and use T-Mobile at Tacolicious -- or anywhere else -- in the Mission haha. You'll be lucky to get 1Mbit/sec no matter how many bars it shows.

You should read this [1]. "For years, Sweden-based tefficient’s annual reports on global wireless prices have been a headache for Canadian telcos, showing that our wireless providers make more money per user than telcos anywhere else."

So how do you make yourself look better. Do not provide the data for the report. Canada has been removed from the list. No longer the worst.

[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/tefficient-canada-wirele...

Depends where you live. I pay 22$ CAD for a nice plan with 2gb, unlimited texts and voicemail. I'm with Fizz.

It's good as a Canadian plan, but atrocious elsewhere in the world.

We are acutely aware.

I’m seeing CAD 32 [0]

[0] https://fizz.ca/en/mobile

I'm not by any means defending the Canadian telecoms, but I'll say one thing about the networks of the big 3: they are rock solid. While visiting Germany, I was impressed by the cheap prepaid data plans, but I only got EDGE in the rural areas and the LTE connections in the cities were not great. At the time I was playing Ingress and I quit in frustration. I was so irritated I even tried Vodafone after trying T-mobile.

In the US* the connections aren't great, either. Not as bad as Germany, but in general I got slower practical speeds almost all over the country (and the big cities like NYC were terrible).

In Canada I got excellent 4G performance when driving the whole way between Saskatoon and Calgary as well as any time I take the train between Toronto and Montreal.

* I've been told Verizon is the best quality network in the States, but I have only been able to get prepaid plans from AT&T and T-Mobile.

Oh, and don't worry, Bell, Telus and Rogers still sell Huawei phones to consumers. Probably helps them hammer down other Android phone manufacturers on price.

I don't have an issue with Huawei phones being available. I have the option not to buy them. It's not the same as network equipment.

If the telecom industry in Canada was competitive enough, you would have had the choice. Like in South Korea LG Plus is using Huawei while others are using Nokia or Ericsson

You're not wrong about this, but it still doesn't bother me that they offer Huawei handsets.

I just wish they'd offer Sony's...

But if Huawei is a Chinese spy, shouldn't the government put some restrictions on that too for public benefit?

But they can't with the ban-but-not-a-ban on Huawei. It would be too obvious that there was a ban if providers scrubbed Huawei consumer products entirely, and those consumers pay the price.

And while you have the option to not buy them, it's not so easy to avoid communication with anyone with a Huawei device.

They just have to ban them from secure zones / departments, and companies that value their security can ban them internally.

If you don't trust who you're communicating with to follow the same measures, then you shouldn't be sending them your secrets.

Disclaimer: China national working for the American company behind Android; opinions are my own.

> But if Huawei is a Chinese spy

Has Huawei been caught with a smoking gun? Is Huawei worse in terms of security compared to other telecom suppliers?

If (national) security is really Canada's top priority, it seems the most needed ban is on American consumer products/websites [0]?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

> Has Huawei been caught with a smoking gun?

If govs knew, they wouldn't publish it to avoid straining already strained relationships. But would do behind-the-scenes work to keep Huawei out of critical infrastructure.

Edit: the risk may be theoretical, but we know all equipment can be bugged. Not a terrible decision to be bugged by a close ally.

Canada is happy to share data with USA and vice-versa. Perhaps gov should fear USA more, but currently they don't.

> If govs knew, they wouldn't publish it to avoid straining already strained relationships. But would do behind-the-scenes work to keep Huawei out of critical infrastructure.

I don't follow; the Western world has put sanctions on China in the past [0], I don't think they would avoid straining their relationships with China in a situation like this.

> Canada is happy to share data with USA and vice-versa.

I don't think sharing is the same as being spied on... Or you mean Canada and America are sharing the information obtained via spying? That would make sense.

[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/opinions/tiananmen-sanctions-...

> I don't follow; the Western world has put sanctions on China in the past [0], I don't think they would avoid straining their relationships with China in a situation like this.

Those weren't economic sanctions, but focussed ones. And against a much less economically-important China. If China cutoff a country in '89, whatever. In '20, uh oh.

The US already strong-armed Canada into arresting Huawei's CFO/founder's daughter. Things are a bit strained at the moment.

>> Those weren't economic sanctions, but focussed ones. And against a much less economically-important China

The lifting of some of those sanctions probably helped China become as economically-important as they are now.

I remember buying computer hardware in the 80s and 90s. There was always a threatening information slip or page in the box that warned about penalties against export of the technology to countries like China. And now? Most of that export-controlled stuff is produced there.

Canada generally shares the same views on democracy as the US; and, more importantly, is part of the same intelligence alliance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

> and, more importantly, is part of the same intelligence alliance

that's exactly why you shouldn't use American network equipment. The Canadian government cannot spy on Canadian citizens due to legal restriction. So instead it tells the CIA to spy on you and then share what they learnt through the intelligence alliance.

Evidence of parallel construction that direction doesn’t seem to exist much. Even if that were the case, that’s still preferable to the Canadian government because it’s at their request. If China is doing it, it’s just a black box of blackmail collection and IP theft.

1) Canada is part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing program so they likely already have access to PRISM data.

2) US is a democracy with an independent judiciary and media. China is not.

You can’t really have an opinion since if you say something bad about China you’ll go to jail.

Did you ask for the same for Apple after the Snowden revelations?

I don't think it does a whole lot with respect to the other Android phones for pricing. I ended up getting a Huawei P20 Pro last year. It was the best value I could get for the price, by a long shot.

Koodo was offering it for $0 additional dollars on their "medium tab" plan ($15/mo for 24 mos). The other options were pretty bad.

I don't really have a lot of brand loyalty when it comes to phones, as I don't use a ton of apps, and the ones I use the most are the browser, email and some messaging apps. I also don't really use the camera as much as most other people. I just want something cheap and fast that can last 3 years or more.

I'm as much a proponent of free trade as the next guy, but I do think there's a strong argument for trying to build and maintaining one's own infrastructure whenever possible, even if it's a bit more expensive. Not just for national security concerns, but because they're big domestic projects and it's nice to have to the talent and knowledge at home.

Just to note that purchasing equipment from Nokia and Ericsson doesn't mean that you are "building and maintaining one's own infrastructure".

As a bonus the network is also actively listened by all state players who have the ability to do so, regardless of supplier.

Right, I was making an argument for domestic solutions, which wouldn't include Nokia or Ericsson - I could've been more clear.

Mobile network equipment is complicated enough that you can't expect every country to make their own from scratch. It's a bit like trying to make a domestic mobile OS or web browser.

> equipment from Nokia and Ericsson doesn't mean that you are "building and maintaining one's own infrastructure".

More than that, it's buying from allies, both political and ideological. I regard most of Europe as a liberalism ally, I'm entirely ok with my nation's telecom gear coming from eg Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, Finland and so on.

They use software from Microsoft or Adobe, and hardware from nVidia, Cisco, Intel or AMD. I'm more than happy to use their telecom gear, including paying a higher price.

One of the reasons used by Canada's telcos to rationalize Canada's sky-high wireless rates is that it costs them more to build out the networks than it does for other countries. I would hate to give them one more excuse to lean on by having them source this equipment domestically.

I'm American, but I'd love to see more of our infrastructure projects pseudo-nationalized, personally. Governments manage to build roads and deliver mail just fine, and I don't see why digital infrastructure couldn't have more government financing and involvement as well.

Some municipalities have tried to get into the high-bandwidth-ISP-as-a-public-utility business, because they’re too small for $BIG_TELECO to invest in, but they want fiber networks to attract businesses and remote tech workers. It’s mostly been unsuccessful because running a local and profitable ISP is hard.

In the few municipalities where they’ve been successful, the big telecom companies have been more successful in lobbying state legislatures to make such municipal enterprises illegal. “It won’t be fair to private businesses to have to compete with a tax-funded local teleco.”

It’s a reasonable argument, but it perpetuates the problem. Maybe the solution is for cities to award a prize (say, $2mm) to private ISPs that can offer high bandwidth connections.

It's not a reasonable argument at all.

It's like arguing that the USPS is "not fair" to companies like UPS or FedEx. Or that public buses are not fair to Uber. Or libraries to book stores.

Hey, I agree with you. I was just trying to give context on what’s happening, without passing judgement or inflections my opinion.

I guess I would rephrase it as “it’s not a totally unreasonable argument”, i.e. you can understand why it would be persuasive to small c conservatives and libertarians who would otherwise be pro-any-policy-that-attracts-business.

It depends on whether you see access to high bandwidth internet as a public utility or not. Arguably it is, because the economics of it don’t make usually make sense for private companies unless that private company is a monopoly.

You really don’t want the state being the practical arbiter of whether or not you can connect to the internet.

Sure, you might have legal recourse if they decide to unplug your entire political party’s ports one month before an election, but in the meantime, you’ve lost the election.

Right now you just go get a different SIM.

The state being in direct control of who and how to censor is a loaded gun aimed at the head of a free society.

> but I do think there's a strong argument for trying to build and maintaining one's own infrastructure whenever possible, even if it's a bit more expensive.

In the semiconductor/telecom equipment industry with very specialized and globalized supply chain, it's impractical if not impossible. No single country can have their entire electronic infrastructure within their own country borders, not China, not U.S., not even the European Union, certainly not Canada. So yeah, it's not about money.

> because they're big domestic projects and it's nice to have to the talent and knowledge at home.

That's wishful thinking. In the free capitalistic society with free trades, the capital(money) and efficiency drives the supply chain. With a little bit of geo-politics, perhaps it could happen, but even then it takes time and the government have to step in and invest - lots of manufacturing industries are capital heavy but margin thin, don't bet on private companies or corporations would invest against the globalization.

And that’s precisely where tariffs should come in.

I wonder what it would have taken to keep Nortel going?

I think we already bungled that one with Nortel going bankrupt, and getting parted up and sold off. And I don't think the solution for that, should've been, lets bail them out because it's in the national interest. We're in this really weird state where these bailouts allow privatizing the profits and socializing the losses. Even if that didn't happen, would Nortel survive anyways with the major consolidations over the last 10 years.

It makes it really difficult, that within a country like Canada, can you make a competitive landscape of a local supply chain, and have it only cost a little bit more, across the millions of pages of standards that make up a mobile wireless network, when you only have 3 customers that make up the majority of the market, plus some regional operators. I think it ends up costing alot more, which is what drives the consolidation and integrated supply chains. And it's not easy to support from a policy perspective.

Edit: Another thought, although the hard part about bailouts is, in a worldwide economy, you're companies are also competing with other companies that may receive bailouts or other government support which makes this an extremely complicated topic.

You may be interested in the book “100 Days: The Rush to Judgement that Killed Nortel” by James Bagnall. This story should be better known as it is a cautionary tale of virtue signalling, both by American regulators and Nortel’s Board of Directors, trumping critical thinking. Ultimately a great deal of consumer value was destroyed due to the presumption of wrongdoing.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.

If you want that then you also want 100% open hardware. Because let's be honest, you will be wasting a lot of time and effort solving already existing problems a 100 times over if everyone does the same thing. Less reliance on one country or company and less chance of states spying on you.

> but I do think there's a strong argument for trying to build and maintaining one's own infrastructure whenever possible

I agree. Europe should not depend on (and funnel money to) The US with Microsoft licenses for government and CPUs.

All the tech we depend on comes from the US, almost nothing is home grown.

Would you agree that we should have our own or are you coming from a position of North American protectionism?

Nokia and Ericsson are both European companies.

Yes, and the parent is advocating for North American equivalents.

I'm asking for European equivalents to AMD/Intel and Microsoft/Apple, which underpins our entire economy.

You could make a lesser case about Google/Facebook but realistically if they went away our governments would continue working.

If Microsoft deactivated our operating systems _or_ productivity software, our economy would be put back at least a decade.

Does ARM count as an alternative? I guess not since it's still mostly American companies actually producing products with the designs.

ARM was entirely bought by Japans Softbank during the currency slump that followed the brexit referendum result[0], since then softbank has sold majority shares to Chinese companies[1][2].

ARM Holdings is predominantly Chinese now.

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/5/12798302/softbank-arm-acqu...

[1]: https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/06/softbank_offloads_51_...

[2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39204744

Apologies, I was answering in the context of an alternative to North American dominance in the CPU industry rather than European equivalents.

But I didn't realise Softbank had sold on their $31bn stake. The BBC article states a $8bn chunk went to a Saudi-backed investment group, and the other sale was the majority stake of only ARM's Chinese subsidiary (worth $775.2m). From that it doesn't seem accurate to say ARM is now predominantly Chinese but maybe there are some other deals I also missed. To be honest, I lost interest once they sold to Softbank - 'in the country's interests' ha!

FWIW as an American expat, I think it does make a lot of sense for Europe to encourage local software and hardware industries. I think this may be where a lot of the FLOSS activism in Europe comes from.

I think the "security concerns" are just a smokescreen .

That is, free trade was good as long we were on top of it, but now that we get a big competitor, it is not so good.

Also it's important to keep in mind trade with China is not "free trade" since it's a one way street. China has massive barriers to entry, with high tariffs and restrictions making it extremely difficult to compete.

Possibly a bit of a stretch, but to my mind more business for Ericsson means more guaranteed support for Erlang. That's something to celebrate about in my book.

I like how you think

I never put it together that for the the telecom-originating language Erlang, the "Er" stood for Ericsson. The more you know.

'The name Erlang, attributed to Bjarne Däcker, has been presumed by those working on the telephony switches (for whom the language was designed) to be a reference to Danish mathematician and engineer Agner Krarup Erlang and a syllabic abbreviation of "Ericsson Language".' [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)

Huge relief to the government, who can now "approve" Huawei, and can go to the Chinese government and say, "see look we play fair in Canada", and still be sure that this will mean nothing and that no Huawei equipment will be used.

Wouldn't be surprised if the government asked the establishment telcos to do this favour for them. Huawei and the notion of them building Canadian 5G polls insanely badly in Canada and the government was in a tough place here.

The relationship between Canada and China isn't exactly cuddly warm right now, what with Meng Wanzhou detained in Vancouver at the request of the Americans, and China's execution of a few unrelated Canadians in retribution [1].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/china-sen...

This was absolutely a strategic consideration planned in concert with the government.

There are no surprises for anyone here.

Literally not making the public announcement was probably the decision arrived at by Trudeau et. al. I'm not sure if it was the right move, though it's almost assuredly a planned thing.

My mobile carrier in Australia (Vodafone) was 100% Huawei for 4G and, similarly, has had to pivot away for 5G at great expense (it seems that the Huawei 5G was a cheaper upgrade to the existing kit they had). It has delayed them doing 5G for at least a year trying to make both the tech and commercials work to pivot. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/vodafone-signs-nok...

Can somebody articulate why using huawei a bad idea beside it’s a Chinese company and using those equipments gives China backdoor access into critical systems and everything it connects to. Or is that basically it? I am trying to understand this objectively as if sitting on mars why this is a good or bad idea.

Using Huawei will pump money into Huawei pockets - allowing them to spend more on R&D for the next-gen tech (6G), resulting in China cementing technological primacy in telecoms - which just won't do as such proficiencies tend to spill-over into related fields (chip design & fabrication, RF engineering & software chops for civilian and military applications). All this is bad (from the perspective of the US)

AFAIK, most companies weren’t even planning on using Huawei equipment, they used the threat to lower prices from other suppliers, and then those suppliers countered that by getting Huawei banned through lobbying.

I think we're learning the value of being self sufficient and the downsides of globalizing everything all the time. When the next [cold, hot, trade] war starts, it will pay to have the expertise to run your own infrastructure.

For the unfamiliar, these are the bigger 2 of the big 3 ISPs in Canada. The basically own most of the actual telecommunication infrastructure, Rogers got some but not much.

As the article mentions, Rogers already had a long-standing partnership with Ericsson and was already going ahead with them.

Also known as Robellus :)

>Rogers got some but not much.

The Rogers network is massive. Bell (which is larger in the east) and Telus (western based) share infrastructure. Rogers is their nation-wide competitor.

Rogers' LTE network covers 95% of the population (according to wiki).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Wireless#LTE

As a Canadian, I would say that if Huawei was not selected due to issues relating to national security -- then why not take some time to setup a crown corporation / Government-owned company and have them develop indigenous hardware/software for 5G networks?

I am sure if Canadians can develop their own smartphones, space mission components (Canada arm) and airplanes, they can develop 5G network equipment.

things move slow in government that would take like probably 15 years, and in the mean time every other nation would have an advantage of 5G.

Starting from scratch would mean we would have 5G when everyone else is upgrading from the "old, outdated" 5G technology.

I would love to know whether the fundamental objection over security vulnerabilities in the hardware and software of Huawei is resolved with this decision.

Or if Nokia and Ericsson are just as susceptible and it was just political posturing.

It's not vulnerabilities they're worried about. The Chinese Communist Party effectively controls Huawei. For obvious reasons this is much more risky than sourcing equipment from ideological/political allies in Europe.

Hmm, this the first time I've been downvoted so hard and coincidentally, also the first time I've ever mentioned the CCP.

What a wild coincidence. /s

In other news; here in Denmark the government has barred Huawei by decree. Also covering Greenland and Faroe Islands. The situation is a bit different here since as there are multiple competing network operators (at least in mainland DK).

Germany's main network operators are also decling Huawei; not by direct government decree though.

So Huawei seems to be loosing 5G contracts all over the western world.

Actually in which western countries will Huawei implement 5G networks? I know they are technically allowed some places but no operators dare to hire them.

South Africa, well I don’t know if it counts as western but we’re rolling out 5G and using Huawei, as we did for our previous gen towers.

Well you can't beat their pricing ... we don't have the luxury of spending $$$ on an ideological decision.

Are they really cheaper? Anyone have the prices?

I think even if they're cheaper now, they'll raise their prices later. And then you'd just be lining up the CCPs pockets at the expense of EU companies (does not apply to SA, I'm just saying for EU citizens).

I was really disappointed in their newest high end phones. On par with Samsung in quality and price, but instead of making them more open (for custom mods and ROMs) they just went down the lockdown route. "Bootloader is locked for the user's safety"... Yeah, right.

Shame, that's one thing they could've kept doing to distinguish themselves and their products.

They're really well priced, in terms of phones IMO yeah. In terms of broadcast hardware I assume that's the case too.

The 5G network in the south of Stockholm by 3 is with Huawei, ironically where Ericsson previously had their main office

The #2 carrier in Switzerland, Sunrise, is already covering over 80% of the populated areas.

In France both Bouygues and SFR want to go forward with their Huawei 5G rollout. I believe the government has banned Huawei equipment only in a few sensitive areas.

UK despite their grandstanding, I think is still going ahead with Huawei for the time being.

has anyone had to hear their crazy relatives go on about the dangers of 5G? Is there some penultimate youtube video or resource to point people to to assuage their fears?

People talk about it on social media. I have yet to encounter anyone in the wild mentioning it. It’s just one of those things that a small minority latch on to and the internet gives them a loudspeaker.

ElectroBoom has a great video that goes in depth about the electromagnetic spectrum, what 'Ionizing Radiation' is, and how EM interacts with humans, and is entertaining enough to keep you watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pxw4tYeCU

A friend has some great stories of some relatives purchasing these lined coats for when it is rolled out.

Lined coats? More info about this, please? Sounds funny.

These people see 5G as this set of radioactive beams which is between the tower and the phone. Radiation causes cancer and vomiting as far as their information (HBO’s Chernobyl) is concerned.

They see the solution in the clothing of the liquidators from that rooftop scene, i.e. those thick black gowns of lead lining. They want coats instead though as the gowns look too poor for them.

They are looking to purchase such a thing for themselves to walk around in. I take it they missed the part about it being 70 lbs.

I would imagine the lead in the clothing poses more of a threat to their health than the radio waves.

Yeah, copper or aluminum would work just as well, if not better :D

You probably shouldn't call people "crazy" if you hope to ever bring them around to your viewpoint.

Does anyone hope that at this point?

It’s not a viewpoint, it’s a fact. Important difference.

The 'crazies' seem to do an okay job sharing the reality they perceive. Don't limit yourself with a belief that only one viewpoint on a given topic is The One Truth™. A person's sincere belief in something is what that makes that thing true.

I’m not “limiting” myself at all. I simply don’t care enough to waste my time. Arguing with flat earthers gets tiring very quickly.

I agreed when you said you shouldn't call people crazy. But this...

>A person's sincere belief in something is what that makes that thing true.

...is dangerous B.S. As they saying goes — People are entitled to their own opinions, they aren't entitled to their own facts.

Yeah, I get it. But then you have to define 'fact', and as far as I can tell the only thing that makes something factual is when enough people share the same opinion about it.

>the only thing that makes something factual is when enough people share the same opinion about it.

You've got it wrong. Religion is a perfect example.

What makes something factual is overwhelming evidence and expert consensus. It's not a 100% foolproof system but it's as close as we humans are ever going to get.

Ideas presented by people without good evidence are not entitled to serious consideration. Especially when those ideas contradict all existing evidence.

We need to stop normalizing this very dangerous notion that people can have their own "facts".

That definition of fact is incomplete since it still depends on being able to agree on the fact of who you consider an expert.

The simple answer, once again, is we choose our experts based on evidence.

By default, the experts in any particular area are the people who have proven they are (based on evidence of education and work experience). The fun fact is, anyone can challenge an expert opinion. Just present compelling evidence that supports your claim.

It's okay to have alternate opinions, but don't try and argue they are valid just because you "chose" a different "expert" to believe. Present evidence or GTFO.

Please, go troll someone else with your circular reasoning nonsense. You're not being insightful or intellectual, you're being childish.

I think my reasoning seems circular because we're talking about different things, but I doubt there's one single fact that all 8 billion of us would agree on. Let's try moving our focus of value away from the contents of peoples' beliefs and toward the knowledge that people sincerely believe them and we value the people. I agree that some beliefs (e.g. the vaccine stuff) are actively harmful, but from where I'm sitting it seems like browbeating everyone until they agree with us hasn't been working out too well these last few years. You can keep trying that and hoping for different results, but I've found more actual success in these matters by changing my own views in the way I'm describing. It's hard to have a conversation with someone who is telling you you're being insincere, ya know? :)

> I doubt there's one single fact that all 8 billion of us would agree on.

So, we should cater to the lowest common denominator of human intelligence/education? Sorry but no. That's both illogical and impractical.

> Let's try moving our focus of value away from the contents of peoples' beliefs and toward the knowledge that people sincerely believe them and we value the people[...] it seems like browbeating everyone until they agree with us hasn't been working out too well [...]

One can be tactful and understanding without compromising truth. The definition of words matter. You can't tell people their alternate views are "facts" or "truths" just because they believe them. As (I think) we've agreed, strong evidence is required before we can describe an idea as anything approaching truth.

> A person's sincere belief in something is what that makes that thing true.

and

> the only thing that makes something factual is when enough people share the same opinion about it.

Attempting to bend the meaning of the words "truth" and "fact" to include "opinion" is an extraordinarily dangerous idea. The end result can only be an Orwellian nightmare where nothing, and everything, is true. I don't want to live in that world.

>It's hard to have a conversation with someone who is telling you you're being insincere,

You seemed insincere because you were exclusively responding with drive by, single sentence comments whose only goal was to disingenuously poke a hole in the previous comment via circular reasoning. You weren't presenting an actual coherent argument (until now).

I think your approach is great. Let's be more empathetic and understanding. Let's educate people about objective reasoning and evidence-based approaches. But, let's do it without compromising truth.

I thought it was going to affect weather satellites or something.

I spent many hours arguing with a smart friend about this. I was unable to find any argument to get her to stop believing 5G is boiling/damaging/altering people's blood with "high powered energy waves" or similar (the blood clot revelations have only amplified that conspiracy angle).

I find a commonality among most conspiracy theory people is vast ignorance of the topic in question and any underlying science. This isn't always true, however I've found it to be frequently true. They watch YouTube or Facebook videos on a conspiracy, someone states an incorrect thing that is held up as being scientifically correct; the conspiracy minded person has no idea it's wrong because of their ignorance of science, and their eagerness to consume conspiracies prevents them from being willing to do proper research. They buy in with no skepticism.

Often the conversation would end on a variation of: when the pandemic is gone, and 5G is still here, then what happens to your conspiracy? They had no reply, the future risk of being wrong didn't matter, only the mental juice of the conspiracy here and now. Or: what about locations where there is no 5G and people are still widely getting the virus? No answer. Or: why is this event so interesting as to warrant outlandish conspiracy theories, versus the pandemics of 1957 or 1968 or 1918, which were not caused by 5G? Or: why didn't 4G kill everyone, despite the absurd conspiracy theories about that as well? It usually does no good, they ignore the premise because that's in the past, they're all about the conspiracy now (it's the only place they can mentally hide, because the conspiracy going on now is usually still open-ended, yet to be crushed fully).

The conspiracy they're latched on to in the present is interesting because all big events are interesting to the conspiracy brain. Particularly big active events. Once an event is disproven, they usually instantly forget it ever existed or that they were ever wrong, and move on to the latest thing occupying the news or culture that is worthy of conspiracy theories (it typically has to be a major event or their brains won't latch onto it).

I'm convinced at this point in my life, after decades of arguing with conspiracy-minded types, that it's a mis-wiring or imbalance in the brain that tilts people aggressively toward being prone to falling for conspiracy theories. They also seem to need the rush of it (which again makes me wonder about an imbalance in their brains). The way they behave intellectually is incredibly similar; when you get inside their way of thinking via long discussions, you start to see weirdly repeating patterns of thinking, traps, failures of logic, and so on. I find that people prone to it, can't seem to help themselves, they swallow conspiracy theories widely about numerous topics and rarely are capable of intellectual skepticism. It almost strikes me as an illness in how they seem hostage to it, and sort of reminds me of drug addicts I've known. Like arguing with a helpless zombie that can't alter their behavior under any circumstances, no matter what evidence they're presented with.

This is the best description I have seen. Especially their lack of intellectual skepticism.

In my experience you can find plentiful examples of similar behaviour among people in general. Take any culture-war-themed thread here on HN and marvel at the extensive collection of knowledge and facts people have on the subject, often extending well into unknowable regions that require omniscience, mind reading, future gazing, etc.

Human beings seem to be highly intuitive thinkers, but you may not notice it much in environments with low variance in core values and beliefs.

But just so I'm not misunderstood, I don't disagree that conspiracy oriented communities seem to have an unusually high percentage of people who are highly open to new and speculative ideas, and are mostly extremely tolerant of diversity of thought. I don't think it's necessarily as bad as it's made out to be, I think they provide some legitimate value to society, although whether it is net beneficial I'm not entirely sure.

It's the religion thing, the belief there's got to be something big at work, always something or someone controlling the masses. Whether it's God, aliens, lizards, or a super group of people.

Because the alternative is that their life, everyone's life, is meaningless on a macro level.

People seem to almost violently reject that thought. Just like they reject any thoughts about death as if they're going to live forever (if not on Earth, then in Heaven/Hell/Purgatory/etc). It's rather fascinating.

The thing is though, if you trace all of this back it does end up coming from a very real place. For hundreds of years the governments have been completely willing to let people be poisoned and die. They did practically nothing about DuPont dumping PFAS into rivers for decades, they continue to do nothing about PM2.5 emissions in the predominantly black communities in Louisiana causing massive COPD and asthma rates... So yeah, it's all very valid that people feel this way about something that they don't fully understand.

The only way to get through to people is to address this - that the governments and supercorps have absolutely abused their power before and will again, but this time that outrage is misplaced entirely.

No, but I have had a discussion with someone on the next door social network (for discussing with neighbours). I was trying to understand their objections to 5G, and it boiled down to them conflating frequency and power.

So, when they heard 26GHz, that meant 26 times more power than 1GHz. The higher frequencies are what scare them, even though they are less than visible light.

I don't know what you meant by "penultimate", perhaps indisputable? But if you don't know of such a resource, how are you so convinced they're wrong? Margarine (with its trans fats) was declared healthy and safe for a long time, until it wasn't.

Anyone who lives in Canada should comment on this. Their mobile data cost is over the roof expensive! This is in comparison already expensive cost in Australia.

They need to manage to give everyone affordable 5G monthly data plan first!

Canadian here. I don't especially care about having a 5G plan, but I support this decision.

Rogers used Ericsson before and they were no cheaper than Telus that was heavy huawei. Geography and population density and lack of competition are what make Canadian wireless more expensive than other countries.

Either way I would rather pay more and not rely on China.

Also I'm holding a grudge against huawei due to Nortel being hacked.

The carriers had every plan to use Huawei, the cost savings would drive far better profit margins and faster rollout for the same capital investment.

However, with the extradition situation with Meng and the threats from the CCP, it is clear that it isn't possible to do business with the company. The risk of a future need to tear out and replace Huawei product due to geo-political/ cyber-warfare in the future outweighs the savings from dealing with Ericsson or Nokia.

Despite zero actual evidence, everyone seems sure that Huawei are a security issue.

Despite enormous evidence, everyone seems sure that Western countries are NOT a security issue.

Last time I checked, Huawei actually offered a better product (speed, price, reliability).

Am I missing something or are people cheering for the opportunity to pay more for a worse product with more security issues?!

The issue isn't the product itself - the issue is that the company that produces is controlled by an outwardly hostile foreign nation that has a history of carrying out state sponsored cyber attacks against critical infrastructure in the west.

Help me out here: link me to an actual Chinese state sponsored cyber attack. There are a few that might of possibly could have been something or maybe not according to someone. I don't doubt china are capable, but they don't seem to be doing it.

And that's exactly the same as the US. Plus the US are actively spying including using their power to support US companies and undermine democracies.

I wanna be clear here, neither "side" is to be trusted or safe or fine. But China is no more of a threat to third party nations' network security that the US as far as I can tell.

And I am normally the one being Hawkish on China.

Check out Mandiant's summary on APT1 [0]. Two brief excerpts from that report:

-APT1 is believed to be the 2nd Bureau of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department’s (GSD) 3rd Department (总参三部二局), which is most commonly known by its Military Unit Cover Designator (MUCD) as Unit 61398 (61398部队).

-APT1 has systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations, and has demonstrated the capability and intent to steal from dozens of organizations simultaneously.

[0] https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdf...

West's hands are not clean, perhaps even more blatantly smeared on doing state sponsored disruption of infrastructure: Remember stuxnet and the problems they created in Venezuelas national oil company.

In the case of China/Huawei the hostile posturing has been largely coming from US/West and not from China. I see much anti China rhetoric emenating from US, but comparatively less the other way round.

It's irrelevant if the west's hands are clean, we are talking about a decision that effects western nations themselves.

Even if they preformed economic espionage, why in the world would they allow themselves to be put into a position where it can easily be done to them?

Then is it that the US/West need some kind of leverage over the supplier, which they can't get on Huawei? Is that the real reason? Likely even Huawei may not cooperate with any domestic espionage/intelligence gathering efforts of the US, I fear if it is not the real reason?

Here in Switzerland, all carriers which build their own cellular networks have chosen different partners for their 5G infrastructure:

* Swisscom: Ericsson

* Sunrise: Huawei

* Salt: Nokia

The whole Huawei scandal wasn't too big news here in Switzerland (as far as I know?) which is the reason that Swisscom and Sunrise were able to cover 90% of Swiss population with 5G at the same time (end of 2019).

Bell is already using Huawei components in other parts of their network. When I opened my Bell fiber modem last year, I noticed Bell was using a 1.25 Gbit Huawei SFP+ transceiver. Is there any possibility of a backdoor?

> Is there any possibility of a backdoor? In a transceiver, I find it quite unlikely. Usually the main question is to ask, what would the benefit and cost of that backdoor be (and the risk of discovery).

So if Huawei managed to backdoor that transceiver, what could they accomplish with it? Chain it to exploit some vulnerability in the router the component is plugged into. Include a bunch of extra hardware and a capacitor, to allow it to surge the port on command to try and burn out your router? Try and sniff intelligence on that 1.25gbps connection, using some tiny low power embedded processor?

If your worth investing in an attack against, their are probably far cheaper ways to attack you specifically, instead of backdooring every transceiver and hoping you end up getting one.

Now, if you're the government your threat model might look a bit different, although, a transceiver is still a hard component to do something useful with a backdoor.

AFAIK there has not been serious technical evidence for backdoors in Huawei products.

I totally agree with the argument that national state should own and control their own infrastructure. But I don't think it actually serves them to use exaggerated claims.

You should ask the same for other/western manufacturers especially after PRISM was revealed.

Yes, there is. However, you should not be worried. I mean, as a western citizen, I prefer my data to be in the hands of a government which has nothing to do with me, instead of my own government.

That's what this is all about. Trump wasn't banning Huawei so the Chinese couldn't spy on you. He did it so HE could spy on you.

Canadians don't realize how high their telco bills are because that's their reality they don't know prices elsewhere and the closest neighbour have also high prices

Oh we realize they are extremely expensive, unfortunately there isn't much we can do to increase telco competition with the current regulatory boards such as CRTC.

The only trick I have heard of to get lower rates is to rent a PO box in SK, sign up for Sasktel and get a SK number (Sasktel being government owned has lower rates I guess). Seems pretty complicated though.

If enough people call their representative and ask for change, change will happen!

Ah, but will conspiracy theorists use Bic or Zippo to burn them down?

Does it really matter?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19449824

Nokia phones are made by HMD Global, a different company that licenses the Nokia brand.

That's great. Picking Scandinavia over China (CCP really) should be a no-brainer, if you care about who you're doing business with.

I love seeing Nokia and Ericsson do well, but in all this I feel like there's something most people, and governments fail to realize:

Sure, Huawei could add backdoors to their equipment, but why bother? Telcos often have Huawei run their networks anyway, they have access to the network via the Chinese employees. That's also the only way they would be able to exfiltrate large amounts of data without anyone noticing.

I don't know about Nokia, but Ericsson manages networks from low wage eastern European countries. I'm sure that China could easily pay off a few Romanians with they really cared enough.

The mandate on the phone companies should be to manage their own networks, or require staff local to the country in which the network is deployed.

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