Huawei is continuing to have a huge deal of trouble kicking goals relating to 5G in our neck of the woods.
After being banned earlier this year from participating in Australia’s 5G rollout, it has apparently also been labelled a security risk across the ditch.
Spark New Zealand announced this week that its deployment of Huawei 5G equipment has been met with disapproval from NZ's Director-General of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).
"The Director-General has informed Spark today that he considers Spark’s proposal to use Huawei 5G equipment in Spark’s planned 5G RAN would, if implemented, raise significant national security risks," said Spark NZ in a release.
Spark says the spanner in the works won't force it to delay launch of its 5G network, which is scheduled for the beginning of July 2020 assuming other ducks line up.
As for the Director-General of the GCSB himself, he was pretty tight-lipped about it, as you would expect someone in his position to be.
"I have informed Spark that a significant network security risk was identified," said part of a brief statement from Director-General Andrew Hampton. "As there is an ongoing regulatory process I will not be commenting further at this stage. The GCSB treats all notifications it receives as commercially sensitive."
Huawei has gone to great lengths previously to declare itself not to be a security threat in order to get a piece of the local 5G action. It even pleaded its case in an open letter that sought to assure Australian MPs the company was "good and safe for Australia".
After the Australian decision, the company argued the ban was politically motivated and not based on facts.
Some reports suggest the Chinese government has already signaled its displeasure at one their nation's star companies now being rebuffed in New Zealand.
Australia and New Zealand aren't alone - the USA has an "unofficial" ban in place by blocking the company where it can, and it's from the U.S. that countries such as Australia have been receiving information discouraging dealings with the company.
So, What Is 5G Anyway?
If you've read this far and scratching your head about the term "5G", it stands for 5th Generation Wireless and its rollout mark a quantum leap in communications - not just for voice but also data. 5G fixed wireless broadband can easily attain speeds of 1,000 Mbps.
Lightning Broadband began rolling out 5G technology on some of its towers early this year.
