The United States Department of Commerce has recommended to the government of India that it not purchase equipment from Chinese vendor Huawei over security concerns, Indian newspaper The Economic Times reported.
According to the report, the U.S government agency had written a letter to Indian authorities last month to urge local authorities to avoid purchasing 5G gear from the Chinese vendor.
“The United States Department of Commerce in a letter to India’s Department of Commerce in early June has advised it to look into security-related issues in the wake of 5G network deployment,” the newspaper reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Meanwhile, an official from India’s commerce department confirmed the reception of the letter, adding that it was forwarded to the Ministry of Electronics and IT for wider consultation.
India’s Principal Scientific Adviser K Vijay Raghavan, in a recent inter-ministerial discussion on 5G technology-based trials, also recommended that India should kick off 5G trials without the participation of Huawei.
Meanwhile, India’s telecom and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had previously said that the government would take “a firm view” on Huawei’s participation in 5G trials, and added that whether the vendor is allowed or not to take part in 5G trials is a complex issue involving security concerns.
The government is currently waiting to receive the feedback from a panel of experts which are currently assessing the security issues regarding a potential participation of Huawei in the country’s 5G trials.
According to local press reports, local mobile operator Vodafone Idea has already selected Huawei as one of the two companies to run 5G pilots.
The Indian authorities have also recently confirmed that they had received six proposals for 5G trials, including offers from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE.
However, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the proposals of the Chinese vendors will depend on the final recommendation of the 5G panel.
The minister also said that the 5G field trials would be undertaken only through licensed operators “in a restrictive, limited geographical area for specific use cases.”
In May, a panel at the Telecom Ministry had recommended the provision of 5G spectrum to Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio initially for a three-month period.
According to the previous reports, Samsung Electronics, Nokia and Ericsson had received the green light from the government to take part in the 5G trials.
Following these initial network trials, the Indian government aims to launch a 5G spectrum auction, probably in the second half of the year. Local carriers had previously announced plans to deploy commercial 5G services in India during 2020.
