I1990s The American telecommunications industry was divided into two competing factions. On one side were Bellhead, named after the former telephone monopoly Bell Corporation, and a representative company created from the split of Bell Corporation in the 1980s. They favored “circuit switching,” which connected customers through dedicated connections with highly specialized and reliable hardware arranged in a strict hierarchy. They believed in proprietary technology, vertical monopoly, and obedience to regulators.
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Those who opposed them were “netheads”. They have grown up with the Internet, which is based on “packet switching”. That is, information is digitized, split into small packets, each routed along the best available connection to its destination, and then recombined. Netheads favored open source software, cross-company collaboration, and decentralized decision-making.
This old debate is being played out again, this time with mobile technology, specifically fifth generation, or 5th generation.G.Modern forerunners are behind the US attack on Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker and China’s best shot at dominating the world’s five countries.G market. The new nethead is found among proponents of “fully virtualized mobile networks” built on cheap hardware and controlled by software in a manner similar to computing clouds. Among them is Rakuten, the Japanese technology group that launched its first full-scale virtualized network on April 8th. If netheads have their way, it could be as momentous as Amazon was when it launched its pioneering cloud computing division in 2006.
In the early days of mobile technology, there were winners (see graph): mobile phone companies and mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia and Ericsson (2)G), smartphone manufacturers, especially Apple, and online giants such as Amazon and Google that reach consumers with such devices (3)G and 4G). FiveG There is no difference.It’s too early to say with certainty who will receive the lion’s share of the $2 trillion annual global connectivity boost GDP The McKinsey Global Institute, a consultancy think tank, predicts that only healthcare, manufacturing, transportation and retail will grow by 2030. But one thing is clear: America does not want to become China. battle over 5G It is spreading from commerce to geopolitics.
At first glance, Western panic about Huawei appears overblown.Many communications experts dismiss 5G As a hype for device and networking kit manufacturers to drum up business. They are partially right. FiveG It will not significantly change the lives of consumers. It promises a faster connection, but is often only used under optimal conditions (when there is a base station antenna within line of sight). Similar download speeds can be achieved by extending 4.G. Excluding China, South Korea, and some other Asian countries, 5G It might only be half as fast as 4.GIt is estimated that it reached 30% of mobile users within five years of its launch in 2009. UBSBank.
go ahead
But 5G It’s more than just a fast way to stream Netflix on the go. This enables networks that can support the “Internet of Things” (IahT): A world of connected devices, from toothbrushes to machine tools. Rather, just as the cloud has turned computing into a utility like electricity, 5G Networks allow us to move more computation to where it’s needed. Increased processing power could allow base stations at the “edge” of the network to guide self-driving cars and factory robots.
Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm, a major American smartphone chip manufacturer, says:G It powers many economic activities as well as communications, making wireless networks critical infrastructure. Probably selfish considering his company stands to make billions of dollars for his $5.G It’s a processor, but it’s not impossible. You can think of this technology as the weft of a dense carpet of wireless connectivity, the warp of which consists of things like next-generation Wi-Fi, new short-range links, a constellation of low-orbit satellites, and, yes, six satellites. .G (Already in development).
It is China’s dominance of this radio tapestry that has surprised many Western security hawks. If Huawei, which has suspected ties to the Chinese state, were allowed to build even part of these networks, it could wreak havoc if ordered to do so by communist rulers. Elsa Kania of the Center for a New American Security think tank is concerned. The risk of Huawei hiding data is not that high. The leak will likely be detected and prevented through encryption. An even bigger concern is that in a conflict between China and the West, the company could disrupt and even redirect adversary networks. IahT Incorporate devices such as driverless cars into weapons.
Western security experts disagree about the practicality of such an attack or its wisdom given the retaliation it would inevitably provoke. But considering that possibility has President Donald Trump’s administration panicking. China clings to Chinese hardware, laments lack of its own vertical monopoly by the US as a whole, 5G This is a “competition” in which China must lose in order for America to win.
This zero-sum approach, even on its own terms, has had limited success. American technology companies quickly found legal loopholes that allowed them to continue selling to Huawei. The company reported on March 31 that its annual revenue rose 19% to $123 billion last year. In 2019, it spent $19 billion with U.S. suppliers, an $8 billion increase from the previous year. Despite US threats to cut off the flow of information to allies that refuse to expel Huawei from their networks, only three countries – Australia, Japan and New Zealand – complied. Even the United Kingdom, the United States’ closest partner on security issues, allowed carriers to use Huawei kit in parts of the country in January.
The US’s tough stance has backfired, prompting Huawei to redouble its efforts to divest from US technology. Although such claims are difficult to verify, Huawei executive Tim Danks said that of the 600,000 base stations the company has shipped, primarily to carriers in China, 50,000 have U.S.-made parts. He said there was no. Engineers who recently disassembled Huawei’s top-of-the-line smartphones found only a few chips designed in the United States.
Hardliners in Washington are now forcing President Trump to tighten the screws, including by lowering the value share of American technology in products from 25% to 10%, allowing U.S. or other manufacturers to supply Huawei. I’m asking you to. Despite his previous bashing of China, Mr. Trump appears to be hesitating, out of concern from US tech executives who have warned that such a move would harm their own industries. The new plan was laid out at a Cabinet-level meeting held at the White House in late March. As a result, domestic and foreign companies that use U.S. chip manufacturing equipment and know-how will need to obtain an export license if they want to sell certain processors to Huawei.
Whatever its final form or severity, this plan makes clear for the Trump administration:G Racism is not about defeating China, it is about holding it back. No reliable strategy for rapidly deploying 5G across the United States, says Paul Triolo of the consultancy Eurasia Group. Ideas such as having the country build a national network (as Mexico did in 2016) and lending capacity to carriersG) or letting private companies run the wholesale business went nowhere.
basic instinct
American airline arbitrarily listed $10,000 5G base station. With the outbreak clearly under control, the COVID-19 lockdown will likely delay installations in Western countries, even as China eases its own restrictions. The Chinese carrier, which boasts 150,000 base stations, hopes to have more than 1 million base stations in 330 cities by the end of 2020.
In an act of ultimate desperation, Washington is toying with European-style industrial policy, once considered the antithesis of American capitalism. In February, Attorney General William Barr said the United States was behind Ericsson and Nokia, Huawei’s weakened European rivals and the only companies other than South Korea’s Samsung allowed to make five units. He suggested that it would have a “large market and financial strength.”G American networks (Lucent, America’s last domestic manufacturer, merged with France’s Alcatel in 2006, and Nokia later acquired the pair). There was talk of subsidies for Europeans, alliances between European countries and soft takeovers by American technology giants and private equity firms.
Sam Sachs of think tank New America warns that European and, ironically, Chinese regulators could block any deal on competition grounds. More fundamentally, as Rakuten shows, the bellhead approach they embody is no longer the only game in town. Mobile networks were the pioneers’ last bastion. Base stations rely on specialized hardware. Mixing kits from different suppliers within one network risks losing connectivity as users move and switch from one base station to another. So carriers don’t do that.
Many people want one, tired of expensive and inflexible kits. Fortunately, engineers can now replicate all the functionality of a network in software. A new industry association promoting such alternatives; ○–Orchid The Alliance is developing open specifications for base stations. Born out of Facebook’s efforts to reduce connectivity costs in poor countries, the Telecom Infra Project helps network operators around the world source and combine components from a variety of manufacturers. Some carriers, including Spain’s Telefonica and Britain’s Vodafone, are testing this new approach.
However, it is Rakuten that has built its entire network based on open architecture. 4 thoughG For now, 5G Promised for June. The company builds its network using kit from various suppliers (including Nokia and US-based Cisco), builds its own computing platform, and uses software from US startup Altiostar, in which it holds a majority stake. It manages all of that. “We did our own integration, and it wasn’t easy. But there was no plan. B” said Tarek Amin, chief engineer at Rakuten. He hopes other companies will follow suit and perhaps take advantage of the company’s technology. Some people are considering it.Asked if Rakuten is a model for Dish Network’s planned $10 billion investment in 5 yearsGAmerican satellite-tv set The provider’s boss, Charles Ergen, said Dish had “learned a lot” from the Japanese company.
What Pierre Ferragu of the research firm New Street calls the “communications cloud” is about to take off. That could make carriers less likely to want Huawei’s products, which tend to be cheaper and just as good as those from Ericsson and Nokia. Rakuten claims that the cost of building the network is about half that of traditional networks.Some of those fiveG The price of the base station is said to be the same as that of a Wi-Fi router. Consumers in emerging countries will love it too. Security hawks should do the same. Open architecture gives operators more control over what equipment is connected to the network. There is no “black box” in Rakuten’s network that you must blindly trust.
Huawei dismissed Nethead’s approach as a “dream.” In contrast to Ericsson and Nokia, the Chinese giant is yet to participate. ○–Orchid Alliance. Perhaps reflecting his past self as a communications company lawyer, Barr called it “pie in the sky.” “It’s always difficult to make parts of different companies work together,” warns Stefan Teral of research firm Informa Tech. Such minor issues delayed Rakuten’s launch by six months. And many aircraft carriers have already started building her five conventional ships.G Base stations may be locked into a single supplier for years to come.
Still, the government could push for an alternative to Nethead, argues Tom Wheeler, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who now works at the Brookings Institution think tank. The bipartisan Senate bill would create a $750 million research fund to foster the development of open architecture networks and help carriers purchase such equipment. Some American lawmakers want to mandate the use of devices with open interfaces.
The Trump administration faces a clear choice. They can go after Huawei, adopt industrial policies, and boldly try to beat China at their own game. Or you could do something more American. Help usher in the innovation that will allow many companies to thrive at a time when what the post-pandemic world needs is cheaper and better connectivity. ■
