What's the Story? Germany isn't worried about Huawei

Light Reading's Iain Morris joined the podcast to discuss why Germany is taking a different stance from the rest of the EU on how it handles Huawei equipment in its networks.

Kelsey Ziser, Iain Morris

November 14, 2024

At a Glance

  • Why the EU considers Huawei to be a 'high-risk' vendor (01:06)
  • Germany's approach to Huawei technology in its service providers' networks (06:08)
  • Open RAN vendor integration is no easy task (14:16)

In his first term as US President, Trump combined sanctions with diplomatic pressure to diminish the presence of Huawei technology in US networks. However, only a minority of EU countries have followed suit. Meanwhile, Germany, Europe's biggest economy, hasn't done anything to thwart Huawei's presence in its networks.

Light Reading's Iain Morris joined the podcast to discuss why Germany is taking a different stance from the rest of the EU on how it handles Huawei equipment in its networks. 

"I think the fear of the Germans is if they can go along and start ordering their telcos to remove Huawei equipment, which by the way is really extensively deployed across Germany – I think it accounts for between 50-60% of all the basestations in Germany – they fear that there is going to be a response and that German trade will suffer," said Iain. 

Iain also explained what Germany's approach to Huawei means for vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia and the financial implications of their treatment of Huawei technology.

For a lightly edited transcript, please click the caption button in the video toolbar. 

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What's the Story

About the Authors

Kelsey Ziser

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Kelsey is a senior editor at Light Reading, co-host of the Light Reading podcast, and host of the "What's the story?" podcast.

Her interest in the telecom world started with a PR position at Connect2 Communications, which led to a communications role at the FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid research lab at N.C. State University. There, she orchestrated their webinar program across college campuses and covered research projects such as the center's smart solid-state transformer.

Kelsey enjoys reading four (or 12) books at once, watching movies about space travel, crafting and (hoarding) houseplants.

Kelsey is based in Raleigh, N.C.

Iain Morris

International Editor, Light Reading

Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

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