wireless network tower

By Dave Barry

High speed internet infrastructure

Huawei’s high speed internet move is about economics: expert

Jul 25, 2019 | 5:00 AM

KAMLOOPS — A move by Huawei to provide 70 northern Canadian communities with high speed internet, shouldn’t been seen as a simple PR move.

That’s the belief of Robert Hanlon, a Thompson Rivers University Associate Professor specializing in China and in human corporate social responsibility.

The program, announced this week in Ottawa, has been criticized as an attempt to divert attention away from international tensions linked to the Canadian arrest of a Huawei executive. Security concerns have also been raised about the Chinese tech giant.

Hanlon says similar high speed programs have been used by the company to build trust within new markets.

“It’s unique in Canada because the company has built infrastructure like this in the north when local companies would not, because of profitability issues,” says Hanlon. “If you were to go on YouTube, you could find videos of Huawei building rural telecommunication infrastructure and offering their services for free in some cases.”

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Instead, Hanlon suggests Canadians should be asking why Canadian based telecommunications haven’t already offered similar programs.

“The only time we look up there is when a foreign firm goes there.” Hanlon added, “There’s a real kind of economic competition thing that is at play here.”

Canada ignited an international diplomatic fight late last year when Canadian authorities arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and held her for extradition to the United States.

China retaliated a short time later with the arrest of two Canadian citizens. There is no end in sight to the dispute.

Working with Canadian telecommunications companies Ice Wireless and Iristel, Huawei says it will develop 20 communities in the artic and 50 in northern Quebec with access to 4G LTE networks by 2025.