US considers subsidizing Nokia, Ericsson in fight against Huawei

The Financial Times reports that the United States administration is exploring different options in the fight against “China’s dominance in 5G”. One of the options includes opening credit lines to Nokia and Ericsson to stimulate the European networks gear providers in a similar fashion China is doing to Chinese companies.

US officials believe that one of the ways to counteract Huawei is to match the multi-billion dollar credit lines China’s state banks give to Huawei, allowing the Chinese tech giant to offer longer payment terms to operators than Nokia and Ericsson, making Huawei gear a better choice financially.

There are also talks about US creating a “homegrown” telecom company that could compete with Huawei. The administration allegedly already contacted Oracle and Cisco if they were interested in such a venture, but according to FT’s soruces, both companies refused, reasoning that creating a new networks gear provider would be too expensive and too time consuming.

Another option includes Altiostar, a US company specialized in networks software that is confident that an American 5G supply is possible, but vendors need to open their hardware. Incentives like tax breaks are also on the table for strengthening US position in the networks space.

Source: FT