After having refused, in recent years, to listen to the warnings of the United States as to its risk of spending vis-à-vis Russia in energy matters, Germany does not seem to pay more attention to the dangers represented by the Chinese Huawei and ZTE on cybersecurity. According to the report “The Market for 5G RAN in Europe: Share of Chinese and Non-Chinese Vendors in 31 European Countries”, carried out by the Danish consulting firm Strand Consult, the German telecommunications network of fifth generation (5G) is currently equipped 59% with “made in China” material. In 2020, the Chinese share in its 4G network was 57%.
Germany is not the only one pinned in the case. Seven other countries including Cyprus (100%), Romania (76%), the Netherlands (72%), Bulgaria (65%), Hungary (53%) and Italy (51%) did not obviously not taking into account American and European concerns about the weight taken by Huawei and others in telecoms. With a penetration rate of 17%, France is not too badly placed. Of the 31 countries considered, which represent a total of 673 million users, eleven of them, including all the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, have reduced their dependence to zero. Without this impacting their costs, nor the installation times of 5G, notes Strand Consult.
“When using a regular cell phone, US General Darryl A. Williams, who serves as the United States Army Europe and Africa Command, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, as well as the United States Army Command land ally, more than 20,000 people, its communications pass through a network built with Chinese equipment. Similarly, when American soldiers use their personal devices, they do so with the risk of intrusion,” notes the Danish firm, for whom it is even more dangerous to depend on China in telecoms than on Russia for gas.