China telecom giant Huawei has been blocked from participating in a government bid to build a national wireless network for first responders, the reasoning given is national security concerns.
According to comments made by the Commerce Department to The Daily Beast, who broke the story, Huawei “will not be taking part in the building of America’s interoperable wireless emergency network for first responders due to U.S. government national-security concerns.”
Sources used by the blog explain that there are serious concerns about chips, routers, and other technical equipment used by the telecom company. The fear is that they would include measures to allow China’s government the ability to monitor or control sensitive networks.
“Given that to the best of Huawei’s knowledge neither the Commerce Department nor any other agency of the U.S. government has conducted any audits of our equipment, such a determination seems utterly capricious,” William Plummer, Huawei’s vice president for external relations commented, when asked about the bid.
A Pentagon report on the Chinese military singles out Huawei as a company that maintains “close ties” to the People’s Liberation Army, the Beast reported.
“Due to our heritage in China – where all of our competitors also conduct R&D and code software and build solutions – Huawei’s business activities in the U.S. have been repeatedly and unfairly challenged due to vague supposed security concerns that have never been substantiated,” Plummer added.
More on that story from The Daily Beast is available here.