MIT Technology Review/Will Knight: The real reason America is scared of Huawei: internet-connected everything

MIT Technology Review
Intelligent Machines

The real reason America is scared of Huawei: internet-connected everything

Five things you need to know about 5G, the next generation of wireless tech that’s fueling tensions between the US and China.

    by Will Knight February 8, 2019

There was a time when the world’s two great superpowers were obsessed with nuclear weapons technology. Today the flashpoint is between the US and China, and it involves the wireless technology that promises to connect your toaster to the web.

The two countries are embroiled in a political war over the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei. The Americans have recently stepped up long-standing criticisms, claiming the tech giant has stolen trade secrets and committed fraud, and that it has ties to the Chinese government and its military.

The company denies the charges and has sought to defend its record on privacy and security. Meanwhile, US allies including Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan have all either imposed restrictions on Huawei’s equipment or are considering doing so, citing national security concerns.

Behind the headlines, though, the spat is also about the coming wave of networking technology known as 5G, and who owns it.

Here are five things you need to know about the technology and its role in the tensions.
1. What is 5G?

Rather than a protocol or device, 5G refers to an array of networking technologies meant to work in concert to connect everything from self-driving cars to home appliances over the air. It’s expected to provide bandwidth of up to 20 gigabits per second—enough to download high-definition movies instantly and use virtual and augmented reality. On your smartphone.

The first 5G smartphones and infrastructure arrive this year, but a full transition will take many more years.
2. Why is it better?

5G networks operate on two different frequency ranges. In one mode, they will exploit the same frequencies as existing 4G and Wi-Fi networks, while using a more efficient coding scheme and larger channel sizes to achieve a 25% to 50% speed boost. In a second mode, 5G networks will use much higher, millimeter-wave frequencies that can transmit data at higher speeds, albeit over shorter ranges.
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