Brazil telecom regulator approves 5G spectrum auction rules and refused to ban Huawei

Since 2019, the U.S government added Huawei to the entity-list because of false national security threat allegations. These sanctions create a lot of difficulties for Huawei from component purchasing to the production of the new devices.

Aside from the US, the UK, and other European regions barred Huawei. Previously, it was reported that the Dominican Republic announced that it will not exclude Chinese manufacturer Huawei through the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (INDOTEL).

According to Reuters, Brazil’s telecom regulator approves 5G spectrum auction rules without any restrictions on China’s tech giant (Huawei) as an equipment supplier.

Last year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro criticized the Chinese company under the pressure from the former Trump administration to ban Huawei from the country’s fifth-generation technology market on security concerns.

Brazil’s 5G network deployment auction is expected in June. However, they have put in costly conditions such as requiring telecom companies to migrate by next year to more advanced technology with stand-alone networks not based on their current technology.

They will also have to cover the vast northern Amazon region with broadband connectivity, largely using optic fiber cables laid in rivers, and build a separate secure network for the federal government.

Apart from this, some Industry representatives said Huawei, the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker, could not be excluded from Brazil’s 5G market. Because, besides the cost, it would set the country back three to four years in technology.

Two of Brazil’s main telecom companies, Telefonica Brasil SA and Claro, owned by Mexico’s America Movil, are pressing for a 5-year transition to the more advanced stand-alone networks.

Vivien Suruagy, head of Feninfra, a lobby representing 137,000 companies that build and maintain telecommunications networks said the stand-alone condition requires changing the core of today’s networks and will set us back years.