Bill for US telcos to bin Chinese kit blows out by $3 billion The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) notified Congress on Friday that the cost to rip and replace equipment kit from Huawei and ZTE installed at US telcos is more than $3 billion higher than funding allocated for the program. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel wrote to explain the situation, which arose from the USA's …
I was slightly suprised by this-
Zero applicants fell into the second category – education institutions, health care providers and libraries.
Ok, so Huawei kit may not have the brand recognition of a Cisco, but came with a considerable capex & opex saving. So whether that indicated those sectors overpay for their networks, or maybe using some other tin. Which is probably made in China anyway. Lack of ZTE is less suprising as their kit's generally aimed at telco trade customers, although can benefit retail users.
Also slightly curious about Cisco in health care. Not a sector I've done a lot of work in, but Cisco kit has typically been designed for use in office environments and less useful in 'industrial' environments where factors like noise can be an issue. I think it may have been ZTE who arranged an Ethernet switch demo in an electricity substation. CIsco and ZTE box on a table, staff flipped a breaker, Cisco stopped working. One of those fun design lessons where I learned that if their kit is around electrical impulses, traction currents etc, it paid to stick'em in a decent EM-resistant enclosure with a decent clean power feed.
Living in a bubble? Cisco has some brand recognition - for having seemingly endless backdoors.
You'll never get fired for buying Cisco. Or if you're a telco type stuck in a hospital bed, you may get free WiFi after you spot the Cisco APs. But other APs are available, that are often cheaper and easier to manage. Rest is just politics. US kit regularly has critical security vulnerabilities, Huawei & ZTE, much less. Yet one gets banned as a security threat.
>Ok, so Huawei kit may not have the brand recognition of a Cisco,
Depends on if you are paying or not.
The last time there was a big hand out for rural broadband it resulted in a lot of one-room schools and libraries in sheds being equipped with grant funded $100K enterprise class CISCO kit.
If you aren't spending your own profit margin and there is a nice CISCO salesman offering to help fill in the application and compliance forms, then who do you buy ?
The last time there was a big hand out for rural broadband it resulted in a lot of one-room schools and libraries in sheds being equipped with grant funded $100K enterprise class CISCO kit.
Seems reasonable. So you've got 10 classrooms, 35 students per class, and you want some future proofing. The Cat9500 is ideal for your classroom needs! Then you'll need a router, so might I recommend an ASR900? And security is obviously going to be a concern, so you'll need an appliance for that as well. I've done my CCDA, I know you need a box for every function!
If you aren't spending your own profit margin and there is a nice CISCO salesman offering to help fill in the application and compliance forms, then who do you buy ?
High-touch salespeople can be so helpful, can't they? Congratulations, your school is now a Cisco powered school! Have a t-shirt! Have you ordered enough $100 kettle cables? Have you noticed the annual licence and support costs? $100k capex, $20k+ annual opex... Do remember to leave your tin exposed to the Internet so we can make sure you're correctly licensed!
Big corporations want to avoid employment laws, taxes and other regulations they lobby for, so that the competition is kept at bay and they outsource everything to Asia so they don't have to worry about it.
Just ban using any foreign kit and watch big corporations having a meltdown having to taste their own medicine.
They can't be dumping whatever working kit they ripped out into landfills right? Right? ......
Resell them to those who want / can use them.
I will not mind a couple of pieces of high end Huawei pieces, even if it's overkill for me. It will still be fun to play with.
Imagine my home connected to the internet via a router which used to connect 1000 users...... Or my small office, for that matter.
Can't a hobbyist or an orgnisation willing to risk it buy those gear?
After all pretty much all IT gear get security issues over time. If insecurity is the reason they can't be resold, we may as well go back to pen and paper for everything and have it all under physical lock and key with security guards, etc.
It will be stupid to destroy working stuff.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
