US mobile telco Sprint (NYSE:S), which will soon be acquired by Japan’s Softbank (TSE:9984) with a massive controlling stake, has said publicly that it will not use telecoms equipment from China’s Huawei after a recent US House Committee ruling. The full investigation is thought to recommend US firms avoid Huawei, despite no evidence of spying mechanisms in its hardware.
Sprint’s chief executive, Dan Hesse, told the FT [paywall]:
Sprint is a big supplier to the US government and that aside, I wouldn’t put in any equipment that would raise any security concerns. […] Sprint has crossed this bridge before and chose not to use equipment in our network that raised any security concerns, so we would always, regardless of the approval process before or after, be very sensitive to that issue.
Meanwhile, Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s billionaire founder and CEO, was more delicate – and vague – in saying:
In the US, I am aware of the sensitivity of the vendor issues which I would respect.
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