Germany To Ban Huawei From Future 6G Network in Sovereignty Push

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Chinese suppliers such as Huawei will be excluded from the country's future telecommunication networks on security grounds as he pushes for more digital sovereignty. From a report: "We have decided within the government that everywhere it's possible we'll replace components, for example in the 5G network, with components we have produced ourselves," Merz told a business conference in Berlin on Thursday. "And we won't allow any components from China in the 6G network."

Europe is increasingly concerned about its reliance on foreign technology, ranging from Asian semiconductors to US artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, as trade and geopolitical tensions threaten critical supply chains. Germany last year ordered telecom operators to remove Huawei equipment from their core networks, citing risks to national security. Berlin is now considering using public funds to pay Deutsche Telekom AG and others to strip out Chinese gear, Bloomberg News reported last month.

By digital sovereignty.

[Anonymous Coward]

They just mean US products.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yeah... if they want to avoid more tariffs. Without economic sovereignty there is no sovereignty. The only real sovereigns are the billionaires that are being given all our public resources

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[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that everything is illegal in Germany, is illegal in Germany.

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[ffkom]

Indeed depending on any single source contradicts "sovereignty", especially if the manufacturer(s) are located in foreign countries. Creating a reliable infrastructure would require having different devices from different vendors, from different countries.

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[Sique]

Let's put it like this.

• Natural Gas accounts for 12% of Germany's electricity generation in 2025
• Wind accounts for 30% of Germany's electricty generation in 2025
• Solar accounts for 19% of Germany's electricty generation in 2025
• Biomass accounts for 8.5% of Germany's electricity generation in 2025
• Lignite accounts for 16% of Germany's electricty generation in 2025
• Hard coal accounts for 6% of Germany's electricity generation in 2025
• Other sources (Coal Gas, Incinerator plants, Oil, Hydro) make up less than

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[nicubunu]

Or perhaps European products, we are talking about telecom stuff, from the likes of Nokia or Ericsson

Systemic Problem

[Midnight_Falcon]

Europe wants to have digital sovereignty, but the reality is its tech sector has lagged far behind in innovation. Why is there no Apple or Google of Europe? Having worked with many startup founders in the US and several in Europe, the conclusion I've come to is: it is infinitely more difficult to create a tech startup in Europe than the USA. Regulations around employment make it very hard to recruit for a startup, people stay at their jobs as it's far harder for them to get hired and fired than in the US. If you're not a well-connected descendent of the aristocracy or nobility, raising money is far more difficult as well. Silicon Valley has two things Europe won't do: Unenforceability of most noncompetes, and overtime-exempt at-will employment. As brutal as these things can be, they're core institutions that resulted in successful tech startups.

Re:Systemic Problem

[ffkom]

Having worked at European tech startups, my experience was a different one: There are such startups, but as soon as they become mildly successful, they are sold off to large international corporations and thus stop being European companies. The US "hire and fire"-mentality or non-competition clauses had nothing to do with it. To me it seems that a somewhat larger ratio of US startup founders want their company to become really big before they sell it, also at the risk of gambling their company to venture capitalists.

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[bn-7bc]

Well yea, that's the gonder ans D early investors tickit to cash out, thst was their exit stratball alomh. And when you sell you sell tho the ones with deepest pockets, wich often happens to be us megacorps

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[registrations_suck]

Culture is hard to fix.

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[Bu11etmagnet]

In other words, there are few tech startups in Europe because they can't exploit their employees as ruthlessly as their American counterparts.

https://www.folklore.org/90_Ho... [folklore.org]

Re: Systemic Problem

[Tatsh]

Exactly. I would rather have less "innovation" and more worker protections.

Re: Systemic Problem

[Midnight_Falcon]

One hundred percent. I was exploited personally by a couple startups, and worked crazy through much of my young adult years. At one I think hundreds of people were traumatized as it fell apart and it became an internal war. Eventually I was part of something successful made it to the exit. Given the choice to go back to age 21 and get a cushy job at let's say, a university, with strong job protections and great pension, or play the startup game and work like mad, I'd choose the latter still. I'm grat

Nokia (Siemens/Alcatel/Lucent) and Ericsson then

[williamyf]

I mean, both are Europeans, and Nokia has a slight touch of Germany

Also, they shall not be using Cisco, Juniper or Arista Routers (too USoAn). Lucky for them, Nokia has a router line inherited mostly from Alcatel.

But, things get realy nasty once we continue, they shall not be using Samsung RF or DWDM equipment(too Korean), even though it is the leader of low priced fiber, and in 5G RF (and probably in 6G too).

And for the NFVs (Network Function Virtualization) at the core of the network, they can not use HP

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[Sique]

They might use ADVA (now known as Adtran), which, while technically being owned by an U.S. entity, are developed and build in Meiningen, Germany.

EU alternative?

[manu0601]

Is there a EU alternative? If not, this is not about sovereignty.

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[nicubunu]

Yes, there are EU alternatives (Nokia and such), they are just more expensive.

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[AmiMoJo]

And a few years behind Huawei. It will be the same as it was with 4G and 5G. Huawei first to market, each generation the lead extends, and later Western companies come along with their knock-offs and rely on national security concerns to get into the market.

Germans will have to wait for 6G, or maybe Nokia can do a deal to rebadge Huawei gear, stick their own OS on it or something.

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[bn-7bc]

Well lastI heard germany did not have bationvide 5g outside urnan atreas yet ( coreect me if my info is outdated j so their interrest in 6g, that AFaIK is not fully standardised yet, might be shal we say not that great

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[williamyf]

Well lastI heard germany did not have bationvide 5g outside urnan atreas yet ( coreect me if my info is outdated j so their interrest in 6g, that AFaIK is not fully standardised yet, might be shal we say not that great

You do not need to achieve full nationwide blanked coverage in one of the Gs, before you start to deploy the next Gs, if there are customers who want the service, and are willing to pay reasonable rates for it.

And customers are not only you and me with our smartphones, is also consumers with wireless broadband, customers and companies with latency sensitive workloads (and 4G brought a reduction in latency, 5G brough even morem and 6G even more), companies which need network slicing, or companies which need

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[williamyf]

And a few years behind Huawei. It will be the same as it was with 4G and 5G. Huawei first to market, each generation the lead extends, and later Western companies come along with their knock-offs and rely on national security concerns to get into the market.

Germans will have to wait for 6G, or maybe Nokia can do a deal to rebadge Huawei gear, stick their own OS on it or something.

I agree with you that Huawei was in the technical lead in 5G, and that lead will extend in 6G. but that lead is not sooo big. Depending on the specific area, I'd meassure that lead as less than 36 months tops, and that streches it.

Except for telcos that do the 6G rollouts in the 2029~2031 timeframe (which are few and far between), not really relevant...

The main issue is the cost advantage. With Huawei and ZTE being significantly less expensive than Nokia or E//.

In RF/BSS only Samsung is an alternative, cost