The United States has decided to move beyond 5G to 6G after the 5G equipment of Chinese telecommunications leader Huawei was boycotted by many countries, led by the United States. The American Telecommunications Standards Institute (ATIS) recently joined forces with several high-tech giants to announce the formation of the 6G Communications Technology Alliance, excluding China’s Huawei and ZTE.
According to the ATIS website, the Next G Alliance is designed to establish North American leadership in the 6G market and will focus on research and development, manufacturing, standardization and applications.
Huawei, ZTE Exclude Western Technology Giants
After tech giants such as Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung joined as founding members of the alliance, the organization announced Nov. 12 the addition of 11 new founding members, including Apple, Cisco, Google and Intel, among others. The statement said the alliance will hold its first meeting on November 16 to discuss overall direction and strategy. This will be followed by a steering group, and a working group will be launched in 2021.
It’s worth noting that Chinese telecommunications equipment companies Huawei and ZTE have not been invited to join the Next Generation Mobile Communications Alliance, according to a report in Mobile World Live. The report quoted Susan Miller, president and CEO of the Telecommunications Standards Organization, as explaining that companies excluded from U.S. government agency procurement contracts cannot become founding members of the alliance.
Xie Tian, a business professor at the University of South Carolina, told reporters that the U.S. doesn’t want to see Huawei use its dominance in the 5G market to control the world, so it skipped 5G and went straight to 6G.
“I think the U.S. 6G technology is close to maturity and can bypass Huawei base stations and arrange a global satellite system directly from the air to provide (communications, network) services, while excluding Huawei and China’s power.”
Dr. Xie Jiaye, president of the U.S.-China Technology and Cultural Exchange Association, also mentioned in an interview with this reporter that Western countries are wary of China’s ambitions and are trying to avoid the expansion of Chinese influence.
“Huawei is not exactly business, he makes money in fact in the second, expand influence mainly. If China controls 5G communications, there is a lot of intelligence involved. After the U.S. realized this, it felt that excluding Huawei would inhibit China’s expansion and prevent it from gathering intelligence through the network.”
West wakes up against Huawei Ren remains confident
In recent years, the U.S. has identified Huawei and ZTE as a security threat to U.S. national security, and has continuously swung sanctions at the two companies. In addition to prohibiting U.S. government agencies from purchasing products from Huawei and ZTE, the U.S. government has also placed them on an “entity list” that prohibits U.S. companies from selling or transferring technology or products to Huawei and ZTE without approval, and has targeted China’s lifeline industries by blocking supply chains.
However, Huawei doesn’t seem to be worried about this. Ren Zhengfei, the company’s founder, told Kyodo News in an interview last year that Huawei had begun researching 6G and “conservatively estimated” that “the use of 6G may be ten years later. Not long ago, China also launched the world’s first 6G experimental satellite, which was described by Chinese media as “once again proving China’s leading edge in the 6G field.
Xie Jiaye, on the other hand, “poured cold water” on Ren Zhengfei, saying that China will not be able to keep up with the U.S. in 6G technology.
“The company’s 6G technology requires a unified standard, and if you (Huawei) are excluded from the standard, how can you participate in this communication network? Also, 6G has higher requirements for chips, you (Huawei) can’t even make 5G now, and you won’t have any chips at 6G. People form alliances, don’t sell things, don’t let you participate in setting standards, how can you build base stations and sell equipment in the future?”
He also added that even though the U.S. government’s restrictions on Huawei are loosening and tightening, and the chip company Qualcomm has just been approved to provide Huawei with 4G cell phone chips, but the chip technology “is firmly in the hands of the Americans,” due to China’s lack of technology and equipment, even if the purchase of U.S. chips can not be imitated.
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