Huawei gets permission to carry out only 5G trials as of now: DoT Secretary

Despite facing ban in several countries, including the US, on security concerns, Chinese firm Huawei has been allowed to carry out trials for 5G connectivity by Indian government, said DoT Secretary Aruna Sundarajan.

Sundarajan clarified that the government would put the necessary safeguards in place before allowing companies to deploy 5G connectivity and access the core networks. “We have asked…or rather Huawei has applied to us for participating in the trials, that is different from deployment,” she told reporters on the sidelines of a workshop on Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology.

The secretary emphasised that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) would like to utilise the opportunity to understand Huawei’s architecture and to what extent it would comply with the networks in India.

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“We will be putting in place necessary safeguards. We will be putting in place all necessary safeguards before allowing any access to the core networks,” she said.

Along with the US, Canada and the UK some other European countries have raised concerns over snooping by the Chinese major.

Earlier, Britain’s defense minister Gavin Williamso has voiced “grave” concerns over Huawei’s role in the rollout of the U.K.’s 5G network. He believed using Huawei’s 5G equipment may enable Chinese espionage.

“I have grave, very deep concerns about Huawei providing the 5G network in Britain. It’s something we’d have to look at very closely,” Williamson said reported British paper The Times.

“We’ve got to look at what partners such as Australia and the U.S. are doing in order to ensure that they have the maximum security of that 5G network and we’ve got to recognize the fact, as has been recently exposed, that the Chinese state does sometimes act in a malign way.”

In India, local equipment manufacturers have also urged the government to stop the procurement of Huawei products for public sector projects. Last week, Union Communications Minister Manoj Sinha told Rajya Sabha there is no proposal yet to ban the company in the country.