3 thoughts on “ZTE wins 50% of China Mobile’s high-end router centralized procurement in 2021-2022”

1. China seems to have decided not to even bother inviting foreign companies to bid on telecoms work anymore.

   It’s hard to draw any other conclusion from the news that China Mobile only invited Huawei and ZTE to bid on the contract for its converged 4G/5G core, according to reports from Light Reading and Gizmochina. China Mobile itself doesn’t seem to have published anything and both stories seem to rely on a Chinese language report, so details may be lost in translation, such as the total sums involved.

   But there seems to be unanimity on the matter of who was and wasn’t invited to bid. In fact, even the term ‘bid’ is obsolete these days as the Chinese state is clearly micromanaging the whole process and the façade of a competitive tender has been crumbling for some time. But such is the way of government interference in the market that they still feel compelled to pretend it isn’t taking place, however flagrant.

   So, as ever, Huawei got most of the work and ZTE was brought in to turn a monopoly into a duopoly. The absence of any meaningful competition means the CCP will also need to keep a close eye on the subsequent work, as those involved have no commercial pressure to do a good job. On the other hand, Huawei and ZTE have a lot to be thankful for after US attempts to destroy them, so they’re be crazy not to put their best foot forward.

   For Ericsson and Nokia this marks the culmination of what both of them seem to have been resigned to for some time. Another recent LR report revealed that Ericsson is already in the process of cutting hundreds of jobs in acknowledgment of its greatly diminished prospects in China. Nokia’s hopes, meanwhile, seem to rest on the Chinese state occasionally wanting to create the illusion of genuine global competition within its telecoms sector.

   In a way this simplifies the whole situation: China is banning western vendors and the west is banning Chinese vendors. It’s a shame, but at least everyone knows where they stand. Stuck in the middle are multinational operator groups such as Orange, which revealed at a strategy presentation today that its Huawei policy continues to be guided by the specific rules of each country it operate in. Right now it’s hard to see any way back from the continued Balkanisation of the telecoms sector.

   https://telecoms.com/511634/china-mobile-didnt-even-invite-ericsson-and-nokia-to-its-latest-5g-tender/

2. Balkinisation (sic) is the wrong word to describe what’s happening to global telecom markets. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica: Balkinization is the division of a multinational state into smaller ethnically homogeneous entities. The term also is used to refer to ethnic conflict within multiethnic states.
   https://www.britannica.com/topic/Balkanization

   A better description might be “mutual mercantilist policies” of China and the Western world.

   Here’s a related article corrupting this one: https://techblog.comsoc.org/2021/09/18/zte-wins-50-of-china-mobiles-high-end-router-centralized-procurement-in-2021-2022/

3. US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law bipartisan legislation that will ban companies like Huawei and ZTE from getting approval for network equipment licences in the US.

   The legislation, Secure Equipment Act of 2021, will require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt new rules that clarify it will no longer review or approve any authorisation applications for networking equipment that pose national security threats.

   Last year, the FCC formally designated Huawei and ZTE as national security threats, with that decision being made as the agency found that both companies had close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and China’s military apparatus.

   Since March, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr has made repeated calls for the legislation to be passed, saying at the time that the FCC has authorised 3,000 applications for Huawei networking equipment to be used.

   “Once we have determined that Huawei or other gear poses an unacceptable national security risk, it makes no sense to allow that exact same equipment to be purchased and inserted into our communications networks as long as federal dollars are not involved. The presence of these insecure devices in our networks is the threat, not the source of funding used to purchase them,” Carr said at the time.

   Besides Huawei and ZTE, other Chinese companies flagged as national security threats are Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, and Dahua Technology Company.

   At the end of last month, the FCC also removed the authority for China Telecom to operate in the US, with the telco required to pack its bags and stop providing domestic and international services by the end of Christmas.

   Citing a recommendation from the Trump-era Justice Department, the Commission said China Telecom America “failed to rebut” a series of concerns raised.

   “China Telecom Americas, a US subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, is subject to exploitation, influence, and control by the Chinese government and is highly likely to be forced to comply with Chinese government requests without sufficient legal procedures subject to independent judicial oversight,” the FCC said.

   With the US clampdown especially focused on Huawei, alongside other countries following suit, the Chinese tech giant reported a steep decline in its first-half revenue, with its business to the end of June reporting 320 billion yuan in sales, compared to 454 billion yuan at this time last year.

   In providing the financial results, rotating chair of Huawei Eric Xu said the aim of the company moving forward would be to survive sustainably.

   Source: ZDNET

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