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Senators Urge F.C.C. to Review Licenses of 2 Chinese Telecom Companies

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top Democrat on Monday asked the Federal Communications Commission to consider whether two major Chinese telecommunications companies should be barred from operating in the United States.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, along with Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, cited national security concerns in a letter asking the commission to review the licenses that give the two companies, China Telecom and China Unicom, the right to use networks in the United States.

In the letter, they said that the two Chinese government-linked telecom operators could use that access to “target” Americans’ communications. And they warned that the companies could reroute communications traveling on their networks through China. The text of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

The request by the two senators shows how leaders in Congress are willing to apply more pressure to Chinese technology firms even as President Trump seems open to pulling back on some of the restrictions as part of the trade negotiations with China. The focus on two previously untouched firms shows that efforts to restrict Chinese technology firms are expanding.

Brian Hart, an F.C.C. spokesman, said that Ajit Pai, the F.C.C. chairman, had made it clear that the agency was “reviewing other Chinese communications companies such as China Telecom and China Unicom” but didn’t commit to opening a formal proceeding to look at the licenses.

China Telecom denied that it represents a national security threat to the United States.

“We make the protection of our customers’ data a priority, and have built a solid reputation as one of the best telecom companies in the world,” said Ge Yu, a spokesman for China Telecom’s Americas subsidiary, adding that the company is proud of “maintaining a good standing with all regulatory agencies.”

In recent years, Washington has levied $360 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, moved to block the ability of American companies to export their technology to China and tried to stop certain products linked to the Chinese government from being sold in America.

National security officials have been worried for years that the Chinese government could use its companies to gain access to crucial telecommunications infrastructure. Those concerns have become more prominent as carriers in the United States and in China race to launch next-generation 5G wireless networks — and American regulators have targeted Chinese telecom companies in the name of security.

In May the F.C.C. denied an application from China Mobile to operate in the United States. Ajit Pai, the commission’s chairman, said at the time that there was a risk that the Chinese state would use the carrier to “conduct activities that would seriously jeopardize the national security, law enforcement, and economic interests of the United States.”

But China Unicom and China Telecom have retained the ability to operate in the United States. Both have licenses that were granted by the F.C.C. in the early 2000s, and some regulators have said that they should be re-examined even though the companies are smaller than China Mobile.

Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner on the F.C.C., said in May that the agency should go “even further” than denying China Mobile’s application and look at the other two companies. A Democrat on the commission, Geoffrey Starks, said that the “national security environment has changed” since the firms were allowed access to networks in the United States.

Mr. Schumer and Mr. Cotton echoed those concerns in their letter, saying that “the evolving national security environment and increased knowledge of the Chinese government’s role in economic and other forms of espionage” requires a re-examination of licenses belonging to any state-controlled Chinese telecom company

Some experts disagreed with the idea that cutting off China Unicom and China Telecom would protect national security, in part because they largely serve companies that do business in China as well as some Chinese consumers in the United States.

“They’re not operating in the sense of a Bell company, or a T-Mobile, or a Verizon; they don’t compete in the U.S.,” said James Lewis, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I think it’s overblown.”

Revoking the licenses would be the latest way the United States has tried to check China’s tech sector since Mr. Trump’s 2017 inauguration.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the panel that vets deals between American and foreign firms, said in 2018 that the acquisition of the chip maker Qualcomm by then Singapore-based Broadcom could limit America’s ability to compete. The same panel demanded this year that a Chinese gaming company sell the gay dating app Grindr.

The administration has been especially aggressive in cutting off Chinese telecom companies’ access to American customers. It banned the networking manufacturer ZTE from buying American products in 2018. Earlier this year, it placed Huawei on a Commerce Department list of companies to which American companies cannot export goods.

Some of the Huawei restrictions are expected to take effect in November, but the White House has reconsidered its Chinese telecom restrictions under pressure from American companies and the Chinese government during on-again, off-again trade negotiations.

After China’s president, Xi Jinping, appealed on the company’s behalf, Mr. Trump interceded with his administration to reverse the ZTE ban. In trade negotiations this summer, the administration appeared willing to back down from some of the restrictions it had placed on Huawei.

Lawmakers have been taking their own steps to put pressure on the companies.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has expressed interest in expediting consideration of a resolution declaring that Chinese telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE pose a national security threat to the United States, according to a congressional aide with direct knowledge of the matter.

Such requests can be blocked if a senator objects. A spokesman for Mr. McConnell, David Popp, declined to comment.

But a nonbinding resolution is unlikely to satisfy lawmakers in both chambers, including Mr. Schumer, who are trying to make sure that language giving Congress more oversight over some of the Huawei restrictions is included in the upcoming military spending bill.

“If we’re serious about this, we need to have something with teeth,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland. “Making a statement may have symbolic importance but it does nothing to address the real issues.”

Source: shorturl.at/ekmvJ

Poland and the USA declare need for stringent checks of foreign Telecoms

As concerns about foreign state influence over critical telecommunications equipment grows, Poland and the USA have signed a declaration calling for stringent checks.

The declaration was signed during a state visit to Poland by US Vice President Mike Pence.

“Protecting these next-generation communications networks from disruption or manipulation and ensuring the privacy and individual liberties of the citizens of the United States, Poland, and other countries is of vital importance,” the agreement states.

While concerns about foreign state influence over national telecom networks have been raised in the past, the debate has grown amid the rollout of 5G due to this generation’s expected use for more critical applications including smart cities, connected cars, and healthcare.

The US has led the concerns for quite some time, but the pressure on its allies to follow has increased amid growing trade tensions with China of which Chinese telecom giant Huawei, in particular, has found itself in the crossfire.

Some observers believe the US’ calls are more political than based in reality, especially given the lack of proven evidence that Huawei itself has ever been involved with any form of espionage. Even the UN said that US fears over Huawei’s equipment are politically-motivated.

However, a series of events haven’t helped Huawei’s case.

A series of unfortunate events?

Huawei CFO, and daughter of the company’s founder, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada earlier this year over allegations of using a Huawei subsidiary to flout US sanctions against Iran.

A report in the WSJ revealed that a group of Huawei employees were caught intercepting encrypted messages on behalf of the African government to spy on its political opponents. The Huawei employees used software called ‘Pegasus’ to access encrypted messages. However, the report notes that Huawei executives in China weren’t aware of this activity taking place and the company says it’s “never been engaged in ‘hack’ activities”.

Back in 2003, Huawei installed a network in the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A few months after, it was noted the network was most active long after staff had left – between midnight and 3am – and that Chinese trade envoys appeared to be suspiciously informed of the AU negotiators’ positions. A French security company drafted in to examine Huawei’s equipment in the AU HQ found a number of software vulnerabilities had been sending data back to Beijing.

In January, and perhaps the reason Poland decided to join the US in calling for more stringent checks of foreign telecoms equipment, the country’s authorities arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei – a former Polish security official – on spying allegations.

Source: https://www.telecomstechnews.com/news/2019/sep/03/poland-usa-declare-need-stringent-checks-foreign-telecoms-gear/

5G: Why you should ignore the hype and wait—until 2020

Sprint brought 5G phone service to four of the nation’s biggest cities this week, including New York City; Washington, D.C.; and LA, and naturally, tech nerds got really excited.

The next wave in mobile. New technology on display!

Then came the reality check: 5G service may be touted as available in my town, but not everywhere. Not at my home, on commute to work, in the office or nearby. Just elsewhere.

After doing some research about the other guys, you come to realize that what Sprint is doing is a milestone. Its coverage is wider than competitors. It’s just not as fast as we imagined 5G would be and certainly not worth the extra expense of an extra $40 monthly (minimum) that Sprint is charging for the family plan, nor the $1,000 or so for the new 5G capable phone.

“This is not the year of 5G,” says Bob O’Donnell, the president of TECHnalysis Research. “Not yet.”

There are a handful of phones currently out that connect to the existing 5G networks, led by the $1,100 Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, but notably, nothing from the best-selling consumer device, the iPhone. Apple’s next iPhone, to be released in September, isn’t expected to work with 5G. That’s not coming until 2020, say analysts.

For consumers, 5G won’t be worth paying attention to until “the end of 2020,” says O’Donnell, “which means that Apple will time things just right.”

By then, the wireless networks will be stronger, new 5G modems will be out that will work with more phones and coverage will be more widespread, he says.

Just how limited the 5G coverage from competitors is today was apparent this Tuesday when we started calling T-Mobile stores in Los Angeles to see if we could come in and test their 5G.

T-Mobile, which is set to acquire Sprint, has a coverage map on its website showing where 5G works with T-Mobile in Los Angeles, most notably in downtown – but only on certain blocks. We called five stores and not one of them had 5G service, nor 5G phones for sale.

T-Mobile declined comment. T-Mobile’s website says it’s in six cities, but a good look at its coverage map shows blocks that are available, as opposed to neighborhoods.

On top of that, the carriers have different methods of how they bring 5G to us. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are using high-frequency waves, which offer faster service but work best when you’re closest to the cell tower. Plus, they can get interference from outside elements, ranging from trees to windows in a building.

Sprint is using a lower frequency, which gets them wider coverage without the obstacles. The downside is the service isn’t as fast, but it’s more consistent, O’Donnell says.

Figuring out exactly what the wireless carriers are doing with 5G is confusing.

AT&T says it has 5G in many cities from California to Florida, but it turns out it’s just for corporate customers. The carrier hasn’t announced the availability for consumers, nor pricing. It doesn’t offer 5G phones for sale.

Verizon has pricing listed on its website, an extra $10 monthly for 5G service, which it says is available in Washington; Atlanta; Detroit; Indianapolis; Chicago; Denver; Minneapolis; Providence, Rhode Island; and Phoenix, with 30 cities in total by the end of the year.

Sprint says its mobile 5G is six times faster than 4G. But getting back to the higher frequency coverage, O’Donnell talks of taking a speed test with AT&T in Los Angeles, where he stood directly under the cell tower and found it to be 60 times faster. Or as he puts it, the difference between downloading an entire season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” or “Orange Is the New Black” in three minutes versus three hours.

“And then I turned my phone away from the tower, and the speed went down by a factor of four,” he says. “It was that short and directional.”

In other words, 5G is here now, if you’re willing to pay for it. Or you could wait for 2020, higher speeds and better coverage.

Early adopters, what say you?

Source: https://techxplore.com/news/2019-08-5g-hype-waituntil.html

Intel sold its smartphone modem business to Apple, but it says it will still be a big player in 5G

Intel sold its smartphone modem business to Apple, but the chipmaker’s CEO said Wednesday that his company will still be a big player in the 5G space.

5G refers to next generation of mobile networking that promises super-fast data speeds with the ability to support new technologies like driverless cars. Apple bought the majority of Intel’s modem business for $1 billion, including technology related to the development of the 5G modems required for devices to connect to the new networks.

However, Intel still has the option to develop 5G chips for non-smartphone products.

Apple made the move in order to develop its own, in-house 5G modems rather than rely on Qualcomm, a company with which the iPhone maker has had a long history.

But according to Intel CEO Bob Swan, the move is also a positive because now the company can focus on 5G in other areas.

Speaking with CNBC, Swan explained that 5G modems were not an area that would differentiate growth for the industry; and with only one customer (Apple) retaining the business, it would not provide attractive returns.

“So we doubled down on 5G networks where we think there’s real opportunity and last week we announced the sale of the 5G smartphone modem to Apple. But we also retained access to the technologies in the event that we need a 5G modem for non-smartphone applications, like a PC or an automobile,” Swan said.

Meanwhile, mobile networks will also be a big area for Intel going forward. The U.S. chip giant traditionally hasn’t focused on the telecommunications sector, but now there’s a shift in its attention to what the CEO calls the “cloudification of the network.” That refers to the increasing amount of software being used in mobile networks that runs in the cloud.

Traditional mobile networks rely on huge amounts of expensive hardware, but an increased use of cloud-based software could reduce the need for some of the physical gear, making networks cheaper to build and faster to upgrade.

Last month, Intel announced a partnership with Rakuten, a Japanese tech conglomerate, to create what it calls “the world’s first end-to-end cloud-native mobile network.”

That’s an area Swan said he sees as a big growth area for Intel due to the world’s “insatiable demand for data.”

What is 5G?

Intel, he said, believes that the future will see more and more processing moving “from the cloud or from the data centers into the networks.”

“That is what we have been investing in and we see that as significant opportunities,” Swan told CNBC.

Intel has been looking to diversify its business beyond just processors for PCs to new always-connected areas such as driverless cars and so-called internet of things devices. The push into the world of telecommunications is part of that.

Swan said that, while the revenue split between what he calls PC-centric and data-centric products is around 50-50, that will change in the future to favor the company’s data-centric chips.

“The technologies and the architectures that we’re building for this data center of the world will become a bigger and bigger part of the company,” Swan said.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/01/intel-future-in-5g-networks-after-apple-buys-modem-business.html

How 5G could democratize the telecom industry

A new, digital revolution might be about to hit us. Autonomous cars are driving our way, cities and companies are rapidly ramping up the use of sensors—also called the Internet of Things (IoT) – and virtual and augmented reality are making rapid strides.

But in order to build all of this we’ll need the fifth generation of mobile internet—5G. This generation of wireless networks will offer a range of improvements compared to today’s 4G, including a potential tenfold decrease in latency (signal delay), a tenfold increase in the data speeds experienced by users and ultra-reliable coverage.
By 2020, all EU countries should have some 5G services with uninterrupted coverage in urban areas and along main transport paths available by 2025.

But 5G won’t only allow you to seamlessly watch Netflix on your phone; it will be the platform upon which a new generation of disruptive technology is built. For example, a self-driving car will need to make quick decisions on the road. This can only happen with fast internet and low latency.

And 5G might also shake up the mobile phone industry’s infrastructure. Today, wireless mobile infrastructure is divided. Operators build their own antennas and base stations. While operators do share infrastructure at times, most areas in Europe possess three to four base stations within a radius of a few hundred meters. That’s hardly efficient.

A new model of ownership called neutral hosting makes mobile infrastructure shared, increase efficiency and lowering barriers to entry. Researchers across Europe are pushing the concept forward.

Municipalities
One such project is 5GCity, led out of Barcelona, Spain, which is building systems for municipalities and local governments to own and operate 5G infrastructure.

“Network sharing among different operators has been here for some time now,” said Dr. Shuaib Siddiqui, director of software networks at Fundació i2CAT, a Barcelona research foundation, and deputy coordinator of 5GCity. “But today we have to go beyond the conventional ways in which network sharing has been done. And 5G technology paves the way for new actors who simply own infrastructure and lease it to the operators.”
Two core aspects of 5G technology would specifically push neutral hosting forward. These are small cells and network slicing.

The amount of cell towers will need to increase dramatically for 5G. “Current base stations cover very big geographical areas,” said Dr. Siddiqui. “But in 5G the idea is that you have smaller but denser cell infrastructure, which means you need to deploy a lot more base stations, also called “small cells”. But if every operator needs to install that many base-stations around a city, it’s going to get ugly really soon.” He adds that it can also be difficult to get permits for building this type of infrastructure.

“Network slicing” is a technique that will be key to 5G networks and will allow segmentation of the network into several slices, each with different characteristics. For example, a 5G network might have one slice for smartphone use, which has high data speeds; one for IoT sensors, which might not have high data speeds but would allow low energy usage; and one for self-driving cars, which would have both high data speeds and low latency so that the car can make quick maneuvers.

Slicing networks wouldn’t only work for different use cases, but might also make sharing infrastructure easier by giving each operator their own slice of the network.

Medieval
One case in which 5GCity is testing this concept is the historical Italian city of Lucca. During the summer Lucca hosts a festival, meaning a lot of people gather in the downtown area and there’s high demand for connectivity during a short period of time.

“It’s a small town and its downtown is medieval, which means it’s quite hard to dig things up and hang up new base stations,” explained Dr. Siddiqui. “Using neutral hosting, the municipality deployed new infrastructure, and with our platform they can slice it into different layers. Operators can then lease one of those slices during moments of high-usage, like during summer festivals.
And that network has brought an added advantage to Lucca. The municipality is also developing a system where it keeps one slice for itself and uses it to build a system of smart cameras that automatically recognize overflowing garbage cans, so the municipality can promptly send crews to clean up the bins.

Wary
However, while the technology is advancing, operators are often still wary of neutral hosting. They like to own their infrastructure, so transferring it to third parties goes against the grain, and it’s uncertain whether neutral hosts like municipalities would invest sufficient capital in infrastructure.

However, some experts believe that neutral hosting would save money for the operators by lowering site costs while achieving the same level of coverage. What’s more, neutral hosting could also shake up the industry if it is implemented on a large scale. Virtual mobile operators, which don’t own any infrastructure but still offer their own mobile subscriptions, could become a more competitive possibility, and power over infrastructure could move from network operators to large owners of real estate, like municipalities, prompting operators to change how they do business.

Nevertheless, for Dr. Siddiqui, neutral hosting won’t be taking over our networks anytime soon. In the face of operator hesitancy, the concept might mainly be limited to niche cases. “It’s not a done solution,” he said. “But if we want to realize 5G in all its potential, neutral hosting will need to have its presence.

Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-06-5g-democratise-telecoms-industry.html