The 5G war is getting more and more bitter. The Chinese giant is now openly boycotted by European countries, which under the pretext of national security are hindering the purchase by their operators of Chinese material for the ultra-fast network, the one that is enabling the economy of the Internet of things, with all the industrial, strategic and even cybersecurity implications of the case. The last case is that of Sweden, which is also a party to the dispute as it is there that Ericsson is based, one of the two European players (together with Nokia) which is closing the gap with Huawei and which - with the support of the USA - would like to become one of the leading alternatives to Chinese technology. Stockholm has announced that it officially closes its doors to Huawei: no more purchases and all equipment already installed on Swedish soil will have to be dismantled by 2025.
A clear position, which follows that of the United Kingdom, but this time a reaction is coming from Beijing. Zhao Lijian, spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, has already threatened Sweden with sanctions: in the viewfinder there is above all Ikea, one of the best known and most deeply rooted Scandinavian groups in the global market, which has 35 stores in China alone. Ericsson itself is also at risk, which works there in Asia and how and which now would in turn be hindered in every way. And in the meantime it also mounts the case of France, where the 5G game is doubly complicated: due to the No-5G movement (which among other things has supported and led many green mayors to victory in the last administrative elections, even in important cities), the first tenders for the network, and obviously Huawei is not the most welcome customer.
Even in Italy, the government's position is now clear and is aligning itself with the Euro-Atlantic one: buying all the infrastructure from Huawei is considered risky for national security and the latest move by the executive was to exercise the preventive protection provided by the golden power (in defense of assets considered strategic for the country, such as the mobile telecommunications network) on Fastweb's 5G network. The TLC is in fact controlled by Swisscom, and it would have emerged that some sensitive data could be filtered by Huawei. At the moment it would only be a preventive and temporary veto, even if it is the first time that the Government has used it openly: now it is up to the company led by Alberto Calcagno to offer an answer that will convince or not the State to give the green light.
This news arrived a few hours after another, which also gives a picture of the situation: Tim announced the signing of a two-year contract worth over 70 million with five suppliers, not coincidentally all Italian, to procure the fiber with which it will replace copper to modernize its access network called Fibercop. The operation concerns the fiber and not 5G but it is important because it comes at a time of difficulty for the Italian telecommunications companies: just yesterday one Mediobanca study revealed a drop in revenues, partly attributable to Covid in 2020, but already in 2019 telephony revenues in Italy had fallen below 30 billion, causing our country to slip into fifth position, behind Spain.
