For Huawei, as with China, 5G is the end game
Huawei’s chief Canadian spokesperson took the most cynical bunch of journalists he could muster on a summer’s day and bathed them in propaganda this week.
Alykhan Velshi was essentially issuing a politically correct dare.
The Chinese telecom giant, he said in a bilingual speech, is developing new partnerships in the most remote regions of Canada, doing its best to “strengthen our social fabric” and “recognize how important connection is in people’s lives.”
In fact, connecting all Canadians wherever they may be “is a necessity,” he said. “It is a right.” And Huawei is there to help. The company’s hope, he said, was that Canadian consumers and policy-makers alike set politics aside and simply appreciate the wonders of Huawei for their technological potential.
The incongruence of that misplaced hope aside, the glitzy news conference — with its highly produced videos of Inuit entrepreneurs thriving because of their internet connections — presents Canada with a policy-making dilemma.
In the last budget, the federal government committed $1.7 billion more to extending high-speed internet to everyone in Canada by 2030. That’s on top of several other billions and repeated promises and strategies to ensure remote communities will have the technology they need to thrive.
The underlying message from Huawei? If you want to do it without us, you’ll have a really tough time.
By touching on every value Canada holds dear — inclusion, appreciation for the North, health care for all, respect for Indigenous peoples, entrepreneurism, accessibility, affordability, you name it! — Huawei was practically taunting the federal government to say no.
Saying yes or no to anything involving Huawei is fraught.
The Conservatives have already indicated they are ready to say no to Huawei’s participation in developing Canada’s 5G network, the next generation of broadband that is expected to revolutionize how we connect and do business.
But the Liberal government has paused its decision on 5G participation pending a national security review, which will undoubtedly be punted beyond election day because it’s so controversial.
It’s not just a question of federal officials determining whether Huawei, despite its close connections to the Chinese government, can be trusted to provide equipment and technology in what will be strategic infrastructure in Canada. It’s also a question of being compatible — on both the technological and security levels — with our allies around the world.
And more immediately, it’s a question of diplomacy. As the United States and China drive other countries to pick sides in their trade war, any friendliness toward Huawei could be taken by U.S. President Donald Trump as a sign of disloyalty.
(Of course, Canada is already paying a stiff price on that front, facing trade retaliation and the unjustified jailing of two Canadians for detaining a top Huawei executive on behalf of the United States.) But back to the North. No one is talking about building a 5G network in remote regions, they’re talking about 4G at best. They’re talking about bringing the tiny communities in the North that have slow and spotty connectivity up to something resembling what the rest of us have right now.
The federal government has just launched a connectivity strategy and a rural strategy, both of which underline the importance of delivering highspeed internet to the North. It has also issued an unprecedented directive, along with $750 million, to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for the federal regulator to incorporate access for all consumers into its decision-making.
“Access to reliable, highspeed internet is essential for success. It's needed for business growth, skills training, public safety, access to services, and participation in the democratic process,” the rural strategy states.
In 2018, 4.9 million people weren’t able to access the government’s targeted speeds of 50 megabits per second for downloading and 10 megabits per second for uploading.
In rural areas, only 37 per cent of households have that kind of access. In cities, it’s 97 per cent.
But for Huawei, the end game is 5G.
As Huawei has done in rural areas of the United States, “the goal is to make themselves indispensable,” says Sarah Pittman, a policy analyst at Canada West Foundation.
The company’s technology already runs deep within Canada’s major telecommunications companies and dominates what little broadband infrastructure there is in the North.
If Canada says no to Huawei participating in 5G, or is pushed to follow Trump’s lead in blocking some Huawei equipment, it would be almost untenable for existing networks to remain intact.
The big companies are examining and costing out alternatives and government officials say that when they earmarked billions to connect everyone in the North, they did it with their eyes wide open. There are competitors with other options.
But they’re not producing cinema-ready documentarystyle advertising on their smartphones to convince Canadians they can solve all the country’s problems, be they technological, economic or social.
That’s messaging worthy of any totalitarian government.