There has been a lot of discussion about the internal struggle of the Indian intelligence community views of implementing Hauwei's Telecom products throughout India's core infrastructure and views of India's DOT and Government owned BNSL on the matter.
According to the Economic Times and Gulf Base.com , "The Indian communication ministry has warned state-owned telco BSNL that telecom networks supplied by Chinese equipment major Huawei must be tested for trapdoors, blackboxes, malwares, and also, if it is susceptible to remote hacking before they can be allowed to be operational." "In fact, Huawei was also the sole company that was shortlisted for BSNL's 25 million lines in Western India, but the PSU now plans to award this contract, worth $1.5 billion, to French-Indian combine Alcatel-ITI. BSNL has identified this as an alternate solution as the telco cannot award this contract to Chinese equipment major Huawei on security grounds as the West zone shares sensitive boundaries with Pakistan." India is very competitive in the design of telecom components but China remains the leader in bulk manufacturer of telecom equipment. While Huawei is fastly becoming one of the world's largest Telecom providers to China, India, Africa, and Europe, there still remains this concern that the company is linked to Chinese supported cyber war initiatives funded by the Chinese military. ZTE, China's second largest telecom provider and the world's 6th largest cell phone provider, is trying to grow its market in the EU. ZTE is now ready to provide China with its approved 3G Network. This year China is also coming up with its own 586 Billion Dollar stimulus package to help its economy. While Huawei is accused of being linked to cyber warfare or cyber intelligence gathering, ZTE has had its share of accusations. In 2007, ZTE was accused of being involved or linked in hacking to some German Government files, and there was trouble with a deal with the Philippine Government. Its an interesting contrast being two of the world's fasting growing telecom providers implementing ADSL, WiMAX and LTE networks and 4G phones, or is it this embedded portal for the Chinese military for cyber intelligence gathering. I believe at one time Microsoft was accused of providing cryptology plugins for the NSA, or involved with the development of Vista and maybe that ZTE, Huawei, or any one else does not have any choice in the matter when it comes to the concerns of its government's national security issues. Perhaps maybe it is a 'Cyber Arms Race' having back doors into some of the world's largest networks is probably too tempting for any intelligence security agency. These are some of risks that nations have to be concerned about when it comes to their own interests of national security and sovereignty when purchasing software or networking infrastructure. Who is your business partner and what risks are you willing to take? The reality is just like our economies - all the networks and software are interconnected.
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