Huawei seeks help from the US FCC

Updated: 2011-07-09 10:32

By Todd Shields (China Daily)

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Washington - Huawei Technologies Co, China's largest maker of networking equipment, asked the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help it sell equipment to states and localities building high-speed emergency communications networks.

Huawei seeks help from the US FCC

A Huawei Technologies Co booth at an international communications expo in Beijing. Huawei, which makes high-speed wireless Internet equipment, wants to be able to sell to early adopting jurisdictions. [Photo / China Daily]

Shenzen-based Huawei "for reasons unknown" hasn't gained entry to a US program that assesses equipment to be used in the networks, and during a June 14 meeting asked the FCC to support its entering the program, Huawei said in a July 6 filing posted on the FCC's website on Friday.

Huawei applied "earlier this year" to the program and its request is being considered along with others, said Michael Newman, a spokesman for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in an e-mail. The institute runs the program, known as the Public Safety 700-MHz Demonstration Network, along with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, another part of the Commerce Department.

In December, the FCC opened the way for 21 jurisdictions to begin building public-safety radio systems that use broadband, or wireless high-speed Internet services, before the agency issues final standards for the networks. Huawei, which makes high-speed wireless Internet gear, wants to be able to sell to early adopting jurisdictions.

The meeting with FCC officials was part of "a very broad fact-based communications campaign" in Washington and elsewhere by Huawei, which is seeking to expand its share of the US telecommunications equipment market, said Bill Plummer, a Huawei spokesman, in an interview.

FCC officials at the meeting included James Barnett, chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, according to Huawei's filing.

Plummer was among four Huawei executives in attendance.

Huawei, founded in 1988 by former Chinese army officer Ren Zhengfei, has struggled to expand in the US as the government considers whether the company's phone networks pose risk to national security. Members of Congress wrote at least two letters last year expressing their concerns.

Bloomberg News