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ZTE said to be meeting with Google over US export ban
Yesterday was a rough one for ZTE. A year after pleading guilty to violating sanctions with Iran and North Korea, the U.S. Department of Commerce brought the hammer down and announced a seven-year export restriction on goods sporting U.S. components.
That applies to more than a quarter of the components used in the company’s telecom equipment and mobile devices, according to estimates, including some big names like Qualcomm. The list may well also include Google licenses, a core part of the company’s Android handsets. According to a Bloomberg unnamed source, ZTE is evaluating its mobile operating system options as its lawyers meet with Google officials.
Many of the internal components can be replaced by non-U.S. companies. ZTE can likely lean more heavily on fellow Chinese manufacturers to provide more of the product’s internals, but it’s hard to see precisely where it goes from here with regard to an operating system. There’s an extremely small smattering of alternatives open to the company, but none are great. Each would essentially involve the company working to build things, including app selections, from the ground up — and likely play a much more central role in the OS’s development.
As for Google’s role in all of this, ZTE certainly isn’t make or break for Android’s fortunes. Still, it’s a pretty sizable presence. As of late last year, it commanded 12.2 percent of U.S. market share, putting it in fourth place behind Apple, Samsung and LG. It’s certainly in Google’s best interest to maintain as many prominent hardware partners as possible — though, not if it comes with the added risk of upsetting the DOC in the process.
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FCC wants to stop spending on gear from companies that ‘pose a national security threat’
The U.S. maneuvers against China’s tech giants continue today with an official announcement from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that the agency may soon ban purchasing anything from companies that “pose a national security threat.” Huawei, ZTE and other major tech manufacturers aren’t named specifically, but it’s clear what is meant.
Pai lists the risk of backdoored routers, switches and other telecoms equipment as the primary threat; Huawei and ZTE have been accused of doing this for years, though hard evidence has been scarce.
The proposal would prohibit any money from the FCC’s $8.5 billion Universal Service Fund, used for all kinds of projects and grants, to be spent on companies beholden to “hostile governments.” Pai mentioned the two Chinese giants in a previous letter describing the proposed plan.
Both companies in question have strenuously denied the charges; perhaps most publicly by Richard Yu, CEO of the company’s consumer business group, at CES this year.
But warnings from U.S. intelligence services have been ongoing since 2012, and Congress is considering banning Huawei equipment from use by government entities, saying the company “is effectively an arm of the Chinese government.”
Strong ties between these major companies and the Chinese government are hard to deny, of course, given China’s particularly hands-on methods in this sort of thing. Ironically, however, it seems that our spy agencies are so sure about this in great part because they themselves have pushed for and occasionally accomplished the same compromises of network infrastructure. If they’ve done it, they can be sure their Chinese rivals have.
The specifics of the rule are unknown, but even a relatively lax ban would likely be a big hit to Huawei and ZTE, which so far have failed to make a dent in the U.S. phone market but still manufacture all kinds of other telecommunications gear making up our infrastructure.
The draft of the new rule will be published tomorrow; the other commissioners have it now and are no doubt reading and forming their own opinions on how to improve it. The vote is set for April 17.
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Rating the big smartphone makers at MWC 2018
With that in mind, this seems like the perfect opportunity to take a good look at how the industry’s big names fared at the show. Barring any sort of unforeseen circumstances, here’s a list of this week’s biggest winners and losers. HMD (Nokia): HMD scored a coup for a second year in a row, led by another nod to Nokia’s former successes. This time out, it was a return… Read More
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U.S. intelligence agencies are still warning against buying Huawei and ZTE phones
Things are still looking pretty bleak for Huawei’s plans to conquer the U.S. market. Earlier this week, half a dozen top members of intelligence agencies, including the FBI, CIA and NSA reaffirmed surveillance concerns about the company and fellow Chinese smartphone maker ZTE. All of this is nothing new, of course. The companies’ troubles date back at least as far back as 2012,… Read More
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ZTE’s dual-screen phone is a fascinating mess
While the world was focused on bigger names like Apple and Samsung, one of the industry’s great workhorses went ahead and released a dual-screen smartphone. But the Axon M’s dual-screen technology isn’t the result of industry breakthroughs. At its heart, the Axon M is an average phone with one (admittedly compelling) gimmick to justify its flagship price. Read More
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ZTE’s new foldable smartphone is actually going on sale next month
The foldable smartphone has been strange sort of white whale for the mobile industry. You could fill a Raiders of the Lost Ark-sized warehouse will all of the attempts to bring the technology to the market. At the very least, ZTE’s new Axon M has one key advantage over many of its predecessors: it’s actually going on sale. And it’s coming to the US, no less.
It’s… Read More
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When modern day innovators begin to stray
Qualcomm is leveraging this essential patent to distort the market for new smartphones by forcing companies that need to license the technology into paying unfair licensing fees and blocking competitors from any size from getting into the business. ZTE kills its crowdsourced phone Kickstarter campaign
Project CSX was a nice enough idea: Get the smartphone community engaged and excited and maybe even gather some good, outside-the-box ideas for mobile devices. In a sense, the project was ZTE’s attempt to foster the sort of community excitement we’ve seen around young companies like OnePlus. It started off well enough — but then things sort of fell apart at the seams. Read More
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