KUALA LUMPUR
AS the tech war between the United States and and China’s Huawei spreads to other countries with bans on the company products, including smartphones entering certain markets, the operations of Malaysian telecommunication companies may not face major disruption.
Frost and Sullivan senior vice-president and managing director (Malaysia) Hazmi Yusof said if Malaysia, too, called for a halt in the use of Huawei technologies, it would not be disruptive or catastrophic.
“There are telcos using Huawei devices, but most rely on more than one vendor to avoid being too dependent on any one.”
Hazmi said the structure of the telcos was such that they had contingency measures for a situation similar to this, which was often used to mitigate bankruptcy of an appointed vendor.
As for the 5G rollout, where telcos have signed memoranda of understanding (MoU) with Huawei to foster its implementation, he said Malaysia had a long way to go based on its current policies or regulations.
“If the Huawei ban spreads to Malaysia, we still have time to find another partner to implement the 5G rollout. This is the silver lining to this raging issue.”
According to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, Malaysia was expected to start using 5G by 2021 or 2022.
The same situation goes for industries that are at the phase of implementing digital transformation.
“Our industries are going through the digital transformation stage to have a noteworthy impact,” said Hazmi.
Earlier this year, Maxis Bhd signed a MoU with Huawei to accelerate 5G implementation in the country, while other telcos are using the tech giant’s modems and routers to transmit Wi-Fi signals.
Meanwhile, telco representatives said there was as yet no directive to halt the use of Huawei products.
Trade tensions between the US and China have escalated over the past week, with technology companies taking a direct hit and the US announcing a trade blacklist against Huawei.
Following this, several US-based tech companies, including Intel, Broadcom and Qualcomm, stopped supplying components to Huawei. Google, too, rescinded Huawei’s Android licence.
Maxis, on Tuesday, said Huawei phones associated with its product offerings were unaffected by Google cutting off Huawei’s Android licence.
“At this point, the ban does not have an impact on our Huawei phone offerings. Customers can still buy a Huawei phone of their choice with any of Maxis’s plans.
“Huawei has assured its customers that existing products are unaffected and customers can continue using its services as usual,” Maxis said.
Several countries have joined the US in sanctioning Huawei’s products, citing security concerns. This includes Australia, while the United Kingdom and Japanese telcos have paused launches of Huawei phones.
It was reported that South Korea was being urged by the US to not use Huawei products in the republic, citing security concerns. -Bernama