During his visit to Italy in September, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that Huawei equipment posed a threat to Italian national security. Washington is trying to get governments from other countries to avoid working with the Chinese telecommunications giant and is preventing American companies from doing so.
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The Chinese company denies US allegations of espionage for Beijing, claiming that the US is trying to tarnish it because Western companies are lagging behind in the 5G technology it offers.
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According to sources, Fastweb has chosen Huawei as the only supplier of equipment for the central part of the network. “The government vetoed it and asked Fastweb to differentiate its suppliers,” one government source told Reuters. Both companies declined to comment.
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While some US allies, such as Britain, have excluded Chinese companies from building their 5G networks, Italy has not yet done so. However, government and industry sources have told Reuters that Rome is now in favor of Washington.
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New Silk Road
Italy upset the United States last spring when it was the first influential Western state to support China’s new Silk Road global project to improve mutual trade and economic cooperation.
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In July, Italy’s largest operator Telecom Italia (TIM) excluded Huawei from a tender for equipment for its central 5G network.
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Fastweb is a division of Swisscom.
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For example, the Finnish Nokia and the Swedish manufacturer of telecommunications equipment Ericsson compete with the Chinese company Huawei. The second mentioned company will build a 5G network for the Czech telecommunications network operator CETIN, which is wholly owned by the PPF Group. The company said this week that Ericsson had won the tender.
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Huawei and 5G networks
The company was founded in 1987 by former Army officer Zhen Chengfei. Today, it is the second largest supplier of smartphones in the world and a leader in 5G technologies, where its main competitors are Ericsson and Nokia.
5G is the fifth generation of mobile networks enabling an order of magnitude higher data transfer rate. Its high capacity is essential for the Internet of Things and fast response, for example, for autonomous cars. 5G will not replace the current networks right away, they will work together for some time.
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