Huawei, still big in Britain, faces new scrutiny
U.K.’s major providers use hardware or services from the Chinese telecom firm
LONDON— The U.K. government is reviewing the makeup of its telecommunications-equipment market—a move that executives say ratchets up scrutiny of China’s Huawei Technologies Co.
The government last month sent a letter to telecom firms, including cellular and internet providers, saying it would review whether the country was too reliant on a single hardware provider. The letter didn’t single out any specific company by name, but executives at businesses that received the letter said it was clear to them that Huawei was the target.
Until recently, Britain was a welcoming market for Huawei. Its smartphones are popular here, and it is one of the country’s biggest sellers of telecom equipment, like antennas and switches, used in wireless networks.
All of Britain’s major wireless and internet providers use Huawei hardware or services, and it is the dominant provider of gear used specifically to move commercial internet traffic across the country.
That is in contrast to the U.S., where the company has been all but banned since a 2012 congressional report called the company a national-security threat. American officials say they worry Beijing could force Huawei to use its gear to spy on or disable foreign telecom net- works. Huawei has said it has never done so, and that its gear is as safe as any of its competitors, thanks to the industry’s global supply chain.
This year, Washington doubled down on restrictions targeting Huawei. The Trump administration and Congress have moved to ban all Huawei gear from U.S. soil. In the wake of that push, some American allies, too, have started to pull back.
Australia, another big market for Huawei, banned it and smaller Chinese rival ZTE Corp. from being part of its new telecommunications network. The Japanese government is considering Huawei restrictions.
Recently, London, too, has raised scrutiny of Chinesemade gear. In April, the British government warned U.K. cellular carriers to avoid ZTE equipment and services because of concerns that Beijing could force ZTE to infiltrate or sabotage communications. British wireless carriers say ZTE doesn’t have a major U.K. presence, compared with Huawei.
Then in July, the government here said a recent governmentpanel review found engineering shortcomings in Huawei gear that “exposed new risks” for carriers using the company’s products.
Last month, George Young, a member of Britain’s House of Lords, the upper chamber of the country’s parliament, said Britain’s cybersecurity agency “has raised its concerns about the ability to manage the risk of having more Chinese-supplied equipment on U.K. infrastructure undermining existing mitigations, including those around Huawei.” He said government departments were reviewing the security of the U.K. telecom supply chain. The National Cyber Security Centre, the country’s primary cybersecurity authority, deferred comment to the government.
The new review, disclosed to carriers in the letter last month, is expected to last around six months. A spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which is handling the review, said it wasn’t targeting any one company or any single country.