Small B.C. town part of Huawei internet test
Lac La Hache getting high-speed hookup from Chinese company at centre of U.S. fraud case
Not everyone’s antsy about getting equipment from Huawei Technologies Co.
China’s biggest technology company announced Friday a pilot project to bring highspeed internet to Lac La Hache, a small B.C. town near Williams Lake.
The trial, funded by Huawei and to be carried out with Quesnel-based ABC Communications, promises to deliver speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. That’s at least double or in some cases quadruple what residents of the 860-person town get now.
“That kind of speed for a lot of areas around here is unheard of,” says Al Richmond, the elected representative for Lac La Hache in the regional district.
While tiny in scale, the project underscores how the Chinese giant continues to address a gaping need in remote areas around the world even as it battles an international furor about the security of its equipment.
It’s winning over customers with cheap, functional kit and paid-for trials in places largely ignored by larger incumbents. Two dozen U.S. telecom companies have used Huawei’s equipment to provide services in remote regions.
It’s a particularly odd twist in a Canadian saga: Meng Wanzhou — Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of the company’s billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei — is living less than 500 kilometres south of Lac La Hache on bail in one of her two Vancouver houses.
Her arrest by Canadian officials on a U.S. extradition request alleging fraud has caused an unprecedented diplomatic crisis as China detained two Canadians and sentenced a third to death.
“Huawei products bring urban internet speeds to rural subscribers around the world,” Huawei said in a statement Friday. ABC Communications CEO Bob Allen didn’t respond to emails and phone calls requesting an interview.
Canada has struggled to bring modern communication services across its sprawling geography.
While more than 80 per cent of the population lives in urban areas with the usual technological trappings, about 6.3 million Canadians are scattered across hinterlands stretching as far north as the Arctic Circle. Connectivity — if available — is sluggish and spotty. Canadians pay some of the highest rates among developed economies for wireless services.
The country’s telecom regulator ruled in 2016 that all Canadians should have access to high-speed internet, directing the industry to work toward providing universal minimum speeds of 50 megabits per second for downloads and 10 megabits per second for uploads. Huawei said in the statement the pilot will meet that mandate.
“It’s really exciting,” says Richmond, who once installed fibre optics equipment for Telus. “If this equipment works, it will be a new dawn for rural British Columbians, an opportunity for economic development where people can work from home.”
Huawei’s pilot in Lac La Hache is based on a technology dubbed “Massive MIMO” (short for multiple-input multiple-output), which clumps together antennas to boost efficiency.
It’s seen in the industry as a precursor to the next-generation, super-fast 5G wireless networks at the heart of broadening global concerns about the Chinese giant.