New German telecom rules don't exclude Huawei

BERLIN: Germany’s federal network regulator on Tuesday unveiled rules for the build-out of 5G mobile networks that, in a snub to the United States, do not exclude China’s Huawei Technologies.

Under the new rules, which will become law by the end of this year or early in 2020, operators have to guarantee that no information is shared with foreign authorities.

“The requirements are not specifically directed at individual vendors,” said a spokesman for the federal regulator BNetzA, adding that further regulation will be introduced if required.

According to the rules, critical infrastructure will be subject to a certification process.

Operators had warned that banning Huawei could add years of delays and billions of dollars in costs to rolling out 5G networks in Germany that could power super-fast home broadband, connected factories or, one day, self-driving cars.

The United States has piled pressure on its allies to shut out Huawei, the leading telecoms equipment vendor with a global market share of 28%, saying its gear contained ‘back doors’ that would enable China to spy on other countries.

The company denies the allegations.