MWC Plans Emergency Meeting on Huawei, ZTE; RWA Concerned
The Mobile World Congress plans an emergency meeting later this month of executive members to discuss the threat from Chinese equipment suppliers Huawei and ZTE, said Travis Russell, Oracle director-cybersecurity, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event Wednesday: “Be watching post-Barcelona and there probably will be an announcement coming out of the GSMA.” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sought to renew the term for the agency's cybersecurity advisory body.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“This is troublesome to the extent that the executive members do not include rural wireless carriers impacted,” Carri Bennet, counsel to the Rural Wireless Association, told us. “No one has reached out to our members on this meeting.” GSMA and CTIA didn’t comment. The Chinese companies also didn't comment. Those manufacturers also concerned legislators, they said Wednesday (see 1902060056).
In December, reports surfaced that President Donald Trump would sign an executive order barring U.S. companies from using Huawei and ZTE telecom equipment on national security grounds. The FCC is reviewing steps it might take to counter the threat from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks or the communications supply chain (see 1812210032).
China “essentially has an authoritarian-capitalist approach to industrial policy and Huawei and ZTE are a big part of that,” said Clete Johnson, CSIS fellow and lawyer at Wilkinson Barker. “The United States and its allies don’t really do things that way. I don’t know if we want to.” The question is how do other companies compete when the Chinese players have unfair advantages, he said.
Countries and companies need to be transparent and create a “level playing field” as they seek bids for building 5G networks, said Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state-cyber and international communications and information policy. While not singling out the Chinese companies, Strayer said loans have been structured at noncommercial rates to encourage investment in some companies over others. “If we have fair competition, Western technology … could fairly compete,” he said.
All parties need to work together, said John Costello, director-strategy, policy and plans in the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “There are internecine battles between government departments and agencies and we all know this,” he said. “The same thing with market competitors.”
“This is infrastructure, this is stuff that we share, this is stuff that we depend on,” Russell said. “This is risk that is going to hit us,” decrease profit and have a cost. DHS launched an Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, which he said includes the FCC. Its work will continue for several years with a focus this year on 5G, Russell said. “We’ve got to do the basics,” he said. 5G “is coming. We know the stakes are high.”
BT decided not only to not use the Chinese companies in its 5G network, but also to rip them out of its 3G and 4G networks, Russell said. “They have now recognized the risk,” he said. “We’re hearing this and seeing this in other markets as well.” Everybody wants to “take a conservative approach” because lots of money is involved, he said.
The big U.S. carriers aren’t using ZTE and Huawei, so the problem is the hundreds of smaller carriers that are, said Chris Boyer, AT&T assistant vice president-global public policy. “A lot of different issues ... are kind of all intertwined under the 5G security umbrella,” Boyer said. The good news is that with 5G, security for the first time is being built into the standards, he said. “In the past, security has kind of been layered on after the fact,” he said: “With the standards process, we feel like security is actually moving in the right direction.”
The U.S. is at “an inflection point” on communications, said Rosenworcel. “What happens with the next generation of wireless services has vast consequences for our economic and national security.” Being first to 5G isn’t enough, the networks also must be secure, she said. “We need a more forward-thinking approach to 5G,” she said. “Cybersecurity needs to be front of mind. The good news is that 5G already features many security improvements over earlier generations of wireless technology.” But more should be done, she said.
Rosenworcel said the FCC Communications, Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council should get new life when its two-year charter ends next month. “The FCC needs to re-charter and reinvigorate this council,” she said. “When it does, it should identify 5G security as its focus.” CSRIC should be directed to study how security technologies could mitigate risk from the IoT, “network function virtualization to mitigate denial of service attacks” and supply chain risks, she said.