Sprint/Softbank agrees to remove Huawei network gear in the Clearwire network to appease House Intelligence Committee

[ericdabbs]

According to the latest news in the progress of the Sprint/Softbank/Clearwire merger, the House Intelligence Committee has raised concerns about Clearwire using Huawei network equipment on national security.

 

Sprint/Softbank has agreed to remove Huawei network gear from the Clearwire network to appease the House Intelligence Committee so that the merger process can continue to proceed.

 

I am very glad that Sprint and Softbank are doing whatever it takes to get this merger done. Both Sprint and Softbank know what is at stake if this merger does not go through and potentially losing Clearwire in the process.

 

http://www.engadget....exclude-huawei/

[Fraydog]

That should be the last large hurdle. The FCC has already hinted at approval.

[koiulpoi]

You know, I still don't believe Huawei is doing anything wrong. The evidence of wrongdoing, at last check, is

• Ties to the Chinese government and military (and China is very bad)
  
• Unproven ties to the Taliban
  
• ...
  
• Well, they could be stealing our information. And sending it to China!
  

The whole thing with the house intelligence committee always seemed very "yellow terror"ish to me. That being said, what Sprint has to do to get done, they should get done, so this is still a smart move.

[digiblur]

China's money is good but not their equipment right?

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

 

[centermedic]

Not surprised since Huawei had already been blacklisted.

[JonnygATL]

Yeah I'm not sure why we are told to be fearful of China and, really, for no good reason. I mean, when's the last time China posed a threat to the United States (aside from with their growing economic prowess, which is a good thing in my mind for global competition and for raising the standard of living within their own nation)?

 

If it were North Korea, then, ok, maybe I could see that. But I won't just be told to be fearful of one nation by my government and blindly say, "ok, sure, I'll be your lemming." I mean, wtf??

[JeffDTD]

Would love to see a late Friday FCC release this evening approving the buyout.

[WiWavelength]

I think we need to send in Cartman and Butters to infiltrate Huawei and find out when the invasion is going to happen...

 

 

AJ

[centermedic]

Yeah I'm not sure why we are told to be fearful of China and, really, for no good reason. I mean, when's the last time China posed a threat to the United States (aside from with their growing economic prowess, which is a good thing in my mind for global competition and for raising the standard of living within their own nation)?

 

If it were North Korea, then, ok, maybe I could see that. But I won't just be told to be fearful of one nation by my government and blindly say, "ok, sure, I'll be your lemming." I mean, wtf??

I'm sure it has something to do with allegations of state sponsored(china) corporate and government hacking.

[gman561]

The fcc needs approve the deal so that Sprint can just unleash there massive network faster.

[ericdabbs]

I am just curious what Sprint and Softbank have in mind for Clearwire. IMO, after the deal gets closed, Softbank/Sprint/Clearwire need to get together and Softbank needs to tell Sprint to deploy 2.5 GHz TD-LTE in ALL major markets including the ones missed out on WiMax (ex: Phoenix, San Diego, Detroit, New Orleans, Milwaukee, OKC, Indianapolis, Albuquerque) in the metro areas on their Network Vision towers even if it means swiss cheese with hotspots. Every major metro market area could use the 2.5 GHz TD-LTE for capacity and needs to be doing so.

[digiblur]

The fcc needs approve the deal so that Sprint can just unleash there massive network faster.

 

Its not going to get any faster. Tower crews have more work than they can handle right now with every carrier doing massive upgrades. I can guarantee that you could find a job with a crew tomorrow if you contacted them.

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

 

[xcharles718]

This doesn't mean that they're removing the Huawei WiMAX gear they already have, right?

[Hugo]

This doesn't mean that they're removing the Huawei WiMAX gear they already have, right?

 

" . . . the companies also said they would remove Huawei equipment currently in use by Clearwire . . . "

 

http://www.theregist...o_ditch_huawei/

[RCM]

I don't know, none of it makes much sense to me. I mean it's okay for our government to force backdoor access into everything, warrantless eavesdropping, all communications filter through the NSA, Utah Data Center, etc and we're overly hyped that China *might* be spying on us??

[Hugo]

I don't know, none of it makes much sense to me. I mean it's okay for our government to force backdoor access into everything, warrantless eavesdropping, all communications filter through the NSA, Utah Data Center, etc and we're overly hyped that China *might* be spying on us??

 

China is and has been spying on us. The idea is to not make it overly easy.

 

I run several websites. These websites are really quite tame and boring, yet, over several years, the hacking attempts coming from China ip's have been at a high level -- much higher than other countries -- such that I have blocked most of China. Which of those ip's are military/intelligence, corporate, or drones piloted by hackers from elsewhere? I don't know.

[xenadu]

Much like the USSR in its heyday, China has been actively trying to steal technology and info, mostly through hacking and similar attacks. Or rather I should say certain elements of Chinese society, possibly some military factions, maybe some domestic companies looking for a leg up. No one really knows.

 

The USSR did things like wear sticky-soles when touring a Boeing plant to get metal shavings so they could analyze alloys. Of course we started feeding them bad info, including a faulty control chip that caused the world's largest oil pipeline explosion. I can only hope we are being as generous with the Chinese; much like the USSR, we won't know it publicly for many, many years as such operations would be classified and they wouldn't publicize their own failures.

 

 

Part of the problem with manufacturing in China is you lose the critical skill of manufacture-design-improve iterations and you teach your future competitor how to compete against you. Ask Dell how well outsourcing everything to ASUS went. GE is moving a lot of appliance production back to the states. The best example I saw was those heat pump water heaters where the Chinese unit cost 1599 and the US-built unit cost 1299 because once the designers, union workers, and managers got into a room together they redesigned the thing to be simpler & quicker to make, 10% more efficient, and lower priced. That's the sort of thing you can't do when you outsource because the Chinese company just builds what you tell them to build and if they have any better ideas they'll use them on their own in-house brand in the Chinese market.

[MagnusOchncap]

Just happy to see Sprint-uh-Bank going forward. Economies of scale will probably net some nicer phones in the coming years (and hopefully less unique one offs like the Evo line).

[irwinshere]

Do we expect wimax to be disbanded sooner because of this?

[lordsutch]

I doubt WiMax will come down sooner; it may accelerate dual deployment, but frankly I think the "assurances" are simply hot air. Sprint wasn't going to deploy new Huawei gear, and (AFAIK) Huawei doesn't make the gear they need to add LTE to the Clearwire network anyway.

 

As for the "national security implications" of Huawei stuff, my take is that if the equipment relies on chips made in mainland China (and the whole network relies on Chinese-made chips, both at the user equipment and the network equipment level), it's just as easy to install backdoors on the silicon if it has a "Samsung" or "Alcatel-Lucent" or "Ericcson" label on the outside of the box as it is if it has "Huawei" on the box. So really this is all protectionist, nativist noise.

[ericdabbs]

Do we expect wimax to be disbanded sooner because of this?

 

No, Wimax will not be disbanded any sooner than 2015. Too many folks including myself depend on Wimax coverage until the Wimax customers can upgrade to LTE phones. Sprint would need to cover the same area where Wimax coverage is currently with LTE before they can even think about disbanding Wimax.

 

Clearwire has stated that Huawei only constitutes a very small amount (I believe 5%) of their network gear. I don't care what Clearwire says but from what I have been reading on these forums, even a TD-LTE overlay over their Wimax will require deployment of new panels, radios and network gear that support dual Wimax/TD-LTE mode. If that is the case where Clearwire would need to replace new equipment for its current Huawei gear, it makes more sense to do it now since it is being mandated. I would love to see Clearwire replace the Huawei gear with the Samsung dual Wimax/TD-LTE RRH equipment.

 

Someone posted a Samsung dual Wimax/TD-LTE RRH hitting the FCC earlier this year.

http://s4gru.com/ind...g-thru-the-fcc/

[MacinJosh]

Late last year Samsung released RRU's capable of dual WiMax/TD-LTE broadcast. They were updated this year to support 4x4 MIMO for use in non WiMax markets, and 2x2 MIMO until WiMax is shuttered in 2015.

 

This deal with the Feds should have no impact to existing WiMax coverage.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

[MacinJosh]

 

No, Wimax will not be disbanded any sooner than 2015. Too many folks including myself depend on Wimax coverage until the Wimax customers can upgrade to LTE phones. Sprint would need to cover the same area where Wimax coverage is currently with LTE before they can even think about disbanding Wimax.

 

Clearwire has stated that Huawei only constitutes a very small amount (I believe 5%) of their network gear. I don't care what Clearwire says but from what I have been reading on these forums, even a TD-LTE overlay over their Wimax will require deployment of new panels, radios and network gear that support dual Wimax/TD-LTE mode. If that is the case where Clearwire would need to replace new equipment for its current Huawei gear, it makes more sense to do it now since it is being mandated. I would love to see Clearwire replace the Huawei gear with the Samsung dual Wimax/TD-LTE RRH equipment.

 

Someone posted a Samsung dual Wimax/TD-LTE RRH hitting the FCC earlier this year.

http://s4gru.com/ind...g-thru-the-fcc/

 

Missed your post there Eric. Thanks. Harder to get links for posts when I'm on my phone.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

[ericdabbs]

Hey josh. The link is to your post in late jan about a samsung dual wimax/lte rrh passing the FCC

 

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[MacinJosh]

Hey josh. The link is to your post in late jan about a samsung dual wimax/lte rrh passing the FCC

 

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

 

Yeah, you beat me to posting, lol, by almost 2 hours.

 

 

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