The Italian government has just vetoed, for the first time, the signature of an agreement between the operator Fastweb and Huawei for the supply of 5G network cores. This decision suggests that Italy may reconsider its position regarding the presence of Huawei equipment on its 5G network.

Huawei had been selected by Fastweb, the Italian division of Swisscom, as the sole supplier of the core network. A fact that undoubtedly led the government to veto the project.

While other countries such as the United Kingdom and France have already taken decisions to eventually ban Huawei's access to 5G networks, Italy had not yet taken a decision to do so. However, some people close to the government or actors in the industrial world claim that Rome is in fact taking a pro-American line on 5G. Companies using Huawei equipment for their 5G network are subject to restrictions on remote interventions to solve technical problems and an extremely high security threshold.

In order to be able to withdraw if Rome imposes too costly conditions in exchange for its green light, Italian telecom companies have included exit clauses in their contracts with Huawei on 5G. Telecom Italia (TIM) even went so far as to exclude Huawei from a tender for its 5G core network. The Italian government could therefore review its position regarding Huawei's role in 5G and in particular for the core network part.

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Source : L'Usine Digitale

After the United Kingdom in July, it was Sweden's turn to explicitly ban the Chinese groups Huawei and ZTE from its new future 5G telecoms network, invoking national security.

The decision was taken following a review by the Swedish Telecom Regulatory Authority (PTS), together with the army and intelligence, aimed at "ensuring that the use of frequencies does not endanger Sweden's security".

Huawei and ZTE will therefore be banned from all "central functions", i.e. more or less the entire network according to the inventory drawn up by the PTS. By 1 January 2025, all equipment already installed that could be used for 5G will have to be removed. This deadline is even shorter than the one set by London, which gave a deadline of 2027.

Leading the campaign against Huawei is the United States. Since the spectacular banning of the Chinese group by President Donald Trump in May 2019, Washington has been openly encouraging its European partners to do the same. The American intelligence services fear above all that Huawei will allow the Chinese authorities to use its equipment to monitor communications and data traffic. Huawei assures that it would refuse any such request from Chinese intelligence.

While Japan and Australia have followed the American movement, European positions remain widely divergent and the recommendations made by Brussels are non-binding. Without having expressed it publicly, France has in fact banned the use of Huawei equipment for 5G in "very dense zones". The periods of use of the equipment will also be limited to eight years.

Slovenia and Romania have also taken measures to facilitate the exclusion of Huawei from tenders. Spain, Poland and Greece, on the other hand, are planning to allow operators to use Huawei's equipment.

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Source : FRENCHWEB.FR

Olivier Roussat, deputy managing director of the Bouygues group, announced that the telecom operator will gradually withdraw cell phone relay antennas manufactured by Huawei. Located in dense areas in France, 3,000 antennas will be affected by 2028. A decision taken at the request of the French government for security reasons of the 5G network.

ndeed, the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (Anssi) will grant authorizations to telecom operators to use 5G equipment, including those manufactured by Huawei, for a maximum period of 8 years. When they expire, authorizations to operate Huawei equipment are not expected to be renewed.

As a result, by 2028, the Chinese giant could be completely squeezed out of the French 5G networks.

To anticipate this decision, Bouygues is starting today to withdraw and replace the antennas manufactured by Huawei. This also enables it to limit the financial impact of this decision. Bouygues did not specify which company would replace Huawei.

Olivier Roussat also indicated that discussions were underway with the French authorities to compensate for the ban on Huawei equipment, which is very costly for the French operator. But without saying more. However, he specified that the group had launched several parallel legal proceedings against the French State.

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Source : L'Usine Digitale

The United Kingdom confirms its change of position vis-à-vis the Chinese equipment manufacturer Huawei with a total exclusion of its infrastructures. By the end of next year, operators will no longer be able to purchase Huawei equipment. They will also have to take the necessary measures to remove all equipment from their networks, both new and old, before 2027.

This decision is likely to have an impact on the pace of 5G deployment in the country. A delay estimated at three years at a cost of £2 billion.

A change of course justified by national security and the preservation of the economy, even if serious tensions are expected with China in the coming months.

A spokesman for Huawei logically referred to a disappointing decision. The telecom equipment manufacturer assures that the restrictions imposed on its activity by the United States are not insurmountable obstacles and calls on the British government to reconsider its position.

The United Kingdom, as a member of Five Eyes, is particularly sensitive to the threats agitated by the USA and the pressures calling into question these privileged exchanges between countries.

It is also a reaction to the recent events which have seen China trying to regain control of Hong Kong despite months of demonstrations.

On the operators' side, we are blaming the blow. It will take them about five years to remove Huawei equipment from their networks.  

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Source : GNT

The deployment of 5G has become an international geopolitical issue. And the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in France is concerned about "recent reports in several French media that the competent French authorities are considering taking restrictive measures against Huawei in the deployment of 5G in France".

It recalls that the French President and senior officials have stated in this press release that, with regard to 5G, "France would not take discriminatory measures against any specific country or company, nor would it exclude Huawei".

These fears of espionage are unfounded for China. "In reality, Huawei's 5G equipment is totally reliable and has never presented any technical or security risks, nor left any 'back door'," said the spokesman.

China says it is counting on France "to take concrete action and create an open, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from all countries, including China".

Last Friday, Orange announced that it had selected European groups Nokia and Ericsson as equipment suppliers for the deployment of a 5ᵉ generation mobile network in metropolitan France.

Within the French telecoms sector, the prevailing sentiment is that the French authorities want to ban Huawei from the 5G market but will not say so publicly.

For its part, the European Commission has published its directives refusing to exclude the Chinese group, while allowing member countries to ban equipment manufacturers they deem to be "high risk".

Several operators say they fear that excluding Huawei will lead to delays and additional costs in the deployment of 5G.

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Source : Challenges

According to several telecom specialists, operators' uncertainty about whether or not to use Huawei's 5G antennas for their new mobile networks is growing.

Yet the law on securing mobile networks (nicknamed "anti-Huawei") has made things clearer. Indeed, operators must get the green light from Anssi - the National Agency for Information Systems Security - before using 5G equipment. The Agency then has two months to study their files.

At the end of December, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom all submitted authorization applications for the deployment of Chinese 5G antennas in France.

However, according to several sources, cyber-experts in the French-speaking part of the country are making more and more requests for further information. It's not serious, "says a concerned operator. If they're trying to save time this way, it's a mistake. A court would never agree with them, the case law is very clear".

What operators are actually afraid of is that the Anssi is deliberately dragging its feet to avoid having to post a denial of clearance ahead of the 5G frequency allocations, scheduled for April. If equipment manufacturers were to be denied to operators before that date, the latter would then be weakened and could therefore lower their bids for the 5G auctions .

According to the new legal framework, the absence of a positive response from the Anssi within two months is tantamount to a refusal. But this time limit runs from receipt of a complete file... a complete file. Hence the irritation of the operators in front of what one actor describes as "delaying tactics" to postpone the deadline.

A specialist in the sector even indicates that "Some operators are impatiently waiting for an implicit refusal to be able to take legal action".

But the strategic interest of the four players differs. Indeed, Free, using only antennae of the Finnish Nokia, is not concerned.

Orange does not use Huawei antennas in France to date. However, it wants to have the possibility to solicit the Chinese supplier for its future 5G network.

As for SFR and Bouygues Telecom, which use Huawei on half of their respective networks, they are keen to be able to continue doing business with the Shenzhen giant. Doing without its 5G antennas would indeed require dismantling the 3G and 4G antennas for compatibility reasons. The cost would be enormous. You would have to buy and install this equipment. Above all, a large part of the network would be disrupted for many months, pushing customers into the arms of the competition. "Free would become, without doing anything, the second best network in the country... while it remains far behind" as a telecom specialist analyses.

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Source : Les Echos

In a report published with the European Agency for Cybersecurity on securing 5G networks, the European Commission warned EU Member States of the dangerousness of new wireless telecommunications technology. For the Commission, the deployment of 5G risks "creating a new security paradigm that requires a reassessment of the current policy and security framework applicable to the sector and its ecosystem and is essential for Member States to take the necessary mitigation measures".

In more detail, this report calls for a review of the current design of 3G and 4G networks and warns against the use of a single supplier, particularly those not based in the European Union, without however mentioning the name Huawei. "The increased role of software and services provided by third party providers in 5G networks leads to greater exposure to a number of vulnerabilities that may result from the risk profile of individual providers".

The European Commission also explains: "While 5G network technology and standards will also bring some security improvements over previous generations, several important challenges arise from new features of the network architecture and the wide range of services and applications that may in the future depend heavily on 5G networks. [...] Major security breaches, such as those resulting from poor software development processes among equipment suppliers, could facilitate the malicious insertion of intentional backdoors into products by actors and make them more difficult to detect. This can increase the likelihood that their exploitation will have a particularly serious and widespread negative impact".

The report adds that EU Member States should not judge 5G network providers solely on their technical qualities and assess them on the basis of "non-technical vulnerabilities related to 5G networks", such that the provider's country has "no legislative or democratic control and balance in place, or in the absence of security or data protection agreements between the EU and the given third country" or that the structure of the provider's owner and the ability for its own country to "exert any pressure, in particular with respect to the manufacture of equipment". If Huawei's name is not mentioned, it is impossible not to think about it...

As a result, Huawei once again defended itself against any interference from the Chinese authorities: "We are a 100% private company, 100% employee-owned, and cybersecurity is a top priority: our end-to-end cybersecurity assurance system covers all process areas, and our solid experience proves that it works".

No one is saying that the Commission will respond to this extended hand, since it has apparently also decided to sweep away another option proposed by Huawei. Indeed, the Chinese manufacturer had indicated that it could be satisfied with intervening only on parts considered less sensitive in the future 5G networks of EU Member States.

The European Union's next steps will result in the publication of a range of mitigation measures to address the identified cybersecurity risks at the national and EU levels by 31 December 2019. Finally, Member States should assess the effects of the Recommendation in order to determine whether further measures should be taken by 1 October 2020. This assessment should take into account the results of the coordinated European risk assessment and the effectiveness of the measures.

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Source : ZDnet

Driven by a booming cloud infrastructure market, hardware and software spending in DataCenters increased by 17% in 2018. A global market dominated by Dell EMC followed by Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Huawei. Investments driven by a "growing demand" for public cloud services and the need for "ever richer" configuration according to Synergy Research Group, which publishes these figures. As a result, the average selling price of enterprise servers has skyrocketed.

In more detail, spending on infrastructure purchases for the public cloud increased by 30% compared to 13% for those directed at equipping enterprise data centers. "Cloud services revenues continue to grow by nearly 50% per year," said John Dinsdale, analyst at Synregy Research Group. "SaaS and e-commerce revenues are each increasing by about 30%. All these factors contribute to a significant increase in spending on public cloud infrastructure," he adds.
The public cloud market is dominated by the MDGs, which account for the largest share of cumulative revenue. On the brand side, Dell EMC is ahead of Cisco, HPE and Huawei. Dell EMC is also a leader in the private cloud market, followed by Microsoft, HPE and Cisco. These four providers are the leaders in the non-Cloud Data Center market, but in a different order.

Total revenue from Data Center equipment, including both cloud and non-cloud hardware and software, is $150 billion in 2018, the analyst said. The Data Center infrastructure market is 96% composed of servers, operating systems, storage, networking and software. Network security and management software represent the rest.
By segment, Dell EMC leads in terms of server and storage revenue. Cisco, on the other hand, overlooks the network segment. Then there are Microsoft, HPE, VMware, Lenovo, Inspur, NetApp and Huawei, which recorded the strongest growth in one year.

"We are also seeing relatively strong growth in infrastructure spending in enterprise data centers, with more complex workloads, hybrid cloud requirements, increased server functionality and higher component costs being the main drivers," concludes Dinsdale.

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Source : Le Monde Informatique

[French article]

L'équipe technique de Rezopole a finalisé la phase de test des équipements 100G qui s'est déroulée sur 6 semaines. Les équipements en concurrence étaient : Cisco Nexus 9236C, EdgeCore AS7712 & Huawei CE8860.

Les équipements ont été testés sur plusieurs critères : leur interopérabilité avec le protocole de Fabric Ethernet (Trill), le support des différents types de Fabric IP (VXLAN/EVPN) ainsi que leur interopérabilité dans un environnement multi-constructeur. La viabilité de plusieurs topologies a aussi été mise à l'épreuve ce qui fera l'objet d'un prochain RUG.
Au terme de cette phase de test, les équipements Huawei se sont avérés les plus adaptés à l'intégration à l'infrastructure actuelle de LyonIX. Grâce à la forte interopérabilité avec les autres équipements, à la réactivité pour l'implémentation de nouvelles caractéristiques (ex : VXLAN & EVPN), et à leur modularité permise par leur format en châssis 2U, les matériels Huawei permettent une plus grande souplesse dans la migration du 10G vers le 100G.

The technical team of Rezopole starts a phase of 100Gb equipment tests.

As a first step, this switching equipment will be connected to the edge of the current Fabric Ethernet and in the future will become the new heart of the LyonIX networks.

During the test phase, their actual capabilities in terms of bitrate will be tested as well as the interoperability of the various manufacturers' Fabric IP solutions.


Many thanks to Cisco for the loan of a Nexus 9000, Alyséo for the loan of an EdgeCore 7712-32X, Brocade for the loan of a SLX 9240 and Huawei for the loan of a C8860-CE!!

L'Adira, Cluster Edit, Huawei et Rezopole organisent le jeudi 23 janvier une conférence à la mairie de Lyon. Le thème de cet événement portera sur « Internet de demain : innovation, nouveaux usages et perspective ».

De nombreux acteurs de la filière TIC locale participeront, sous la présidence d'honneur du Sénateur-Maire de Lyon, à la table ronde pour répondre aux interrogations sur l'avenir d'Internet. La conférence sera suivie d'un cocktail dînatoire.

Programme

17h00 : Accueil

17h30 : Mot d'ouverture

17h45 : Table-Ronde « Internet de demain : innovation, nouveaux usages et perspectives »

-Pierre Col, Directeur Marketing d'Antidot

-Claude Guédat, INSA Lyon, Directeur adjoint du département Télécom

-Grégory Palayer, CEO, UpMyBiz

-Nicolas Pitance, CEO, DC for DATA

-Jean Mougin, CEO de Altica, délégué régional de Syntec Numérique Rhône-Alpes

Grand témoin : Christian Nibourel, Président d'Accenture France Benelux, Président INSA Lyon, chef de projet sur l'initiative stratégique « Plan Hôpital Numérique »

Clôture : François Quentin, Président du Conseil d'Administration de Huawei France

19h30 : Cocktail

Informations utiles

Événement à la mairie de Lyon, salon Justin Godart

Plan d'accès

Accueil à partir de 17h