Small ISPs Being Forced To Eat The Costs Of FCC's Huawei Ban

Small ISPs Being Forced To Eat The Costs Of FCC's Huawei Ban

4 years ago
Anonymous $qOHwDUKgAF

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200701/12154944827/small-isps-being-forced-to-eat-costs-fccs-huawei-ban.shtml

We've repeatedly noted that while Huawei certainly engages in some clearly sketchy shit (like many modern US telecom giants), the evidence supporting the Trump administration's global blacklist of the company has been lacking. Despite more than a decade of accusations and one eighteen month investigation that found nothing, the Trump administration still hasn't provided any public evidence supporting the central justification for the global blackballing effort (that Huawei works directly for the Chinese government to spy wholesale on Americans).

While there's certainly some valid natsec concerns in the mix when it comes to letting an authoritarian government dominate global network builds, at least some portion of the effort appears to be protectionism driven by US network hardware makers that simply don't want to compete with cheaper Chinese gear. Some of the effort is also Trump trying to obtain leverage for his often ridiculous tariff and trade war, which at least, for some advocates, is driven more by partisan patty cake or bigotry than substantive reason.