Hello Guys, Welcome to Legendshub Blog. Top technology news for the week are as follows.
1.) Stolen Technology Charges on Huawei
Recently accusations have come forward by the US government towards Huawei (a Chinese Tech company) for stealing trade secrets and lying to the US Federal Investigators would only deepen US-UK tensions by the recent move made by the British government. They allowed a Chinese company in supplying 5G equipment for new network.
These new allegations are against the world’s largest telecom equipment makers claiming that the company has had many successful attempts in stealing intellectual property, thus giving its competitors an unfair advantage. The second allegation is that, Huawei has engaged in covert efforts to ship its goods and services to countries like Iran and North Korea, thus by violating US, European & UN sanctions.
Proof has been given by the Department of Justice that their documents have shown that the company was referring to these countries via coded names like “A2” for Iran and “A9” for North Korea. When Huawei was needed for comments on the said accusations, they did not respond to it immediately and later denied any previous wrong doings by the company.
Others than these two charges, more claims have come forward. Huawei has also lied in the past about its connections with Skycom, which according to the lawyers was an “unofficial subsidiary” by Huawei in assisting Iran to perform domestic surveillance against Tehran in 2009 among others.
Arrests have been made after a year of allegations. DOJ is now charging Huawei and Meng Wanzhou, the company’s CFO and daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, for fraud and circumventing sanctions. Her arrest was made in 2018 at the Vancouver airport.
The British government has now limited its contact with Huawei thus calling the Chinese company as a “high risk vendor” and has put a lid on its involvement in building the network. Its spy agencies have argued that the damage can be contained but the government and parliament think otherwise.
However, the indictment by the US has shown a completely different picture. It describes Huawei’s efforts as “inappropriate” because it entered a confidentiality agreement with the suppliers and used professors at research institute to obtain the technology. Other than this, another reason for dragging them to court was, misleading the US authorities and advising the employees of Huawei to conceal the employment with the company during investigation by the Law Enforcement of the US.
2.) Ananth Technology Building Foreign Satellites in India
Ananth Tec. an Aerospace firm is building foreign owned satellites for global customers at a low-cost base. This company is Hyderabad based and is also the supplier for ISRO. Satellites that are being built would weigh between 50kg to 250kg at a facility in Bengaluru. These are to be supplied to Sweden and France, according to the Chairman and MD Subba Rao Pavuluri. He also said, “We can fully integrate satellites at around 30% lower costs (than in the West)”.
The company Ananth Technology has been a supplier of satellite systems and sub-systems, along with solar panels for these satellites and are now offering an end-to-end service, that is, integrating the satellites, identifying the rockets and launching them from the Indian soil.
Indians for a decade long have been an expert in building satellites and has created a critical talent base, thus, by giving it an edge in tapping outsourcing avenues. In 2019, ISRO earned Rs. 1254 crores by launching satellites for global customers like US, UK, Japan and Germany among others.
And now, the Indian Space Research Organization is developing a small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) that could be turned around every two days & can hurl 400kg satellites into Earths lower orbit. Antrix Corp is ISRO’s commercial arm and it has contracts with EADS Astrium to build communication satellites for British media firm Avanti Screen Media Group Plc.
Other than this, there are some full- fledged satellite production initiatives in the pipeline which also includes, with a joint production facility consisting of Berlin Space Tech and Azista Aerospace (Ahmedabad based).
As per Mr. Narayan Prasad the co-founder of satsearch.com and an industry analyst, these companies could be an outsourcing hub for satellite manufacturing for global companies. The more exciting thing would be if the services provided in the field of communication or imaging would emerge as a result of such satellite producing facilities.
3.) 10 Billion Dollar Merger Approved by Australian Court
Australian court has just given a green signal to a merger Between a unit of Britain’s Vodafone Group and an internet provider, TPG of $10 billion, thus by, overruling the regulators and enabling a huge rival to the top contending Telco’s. A Federal court judge said that, this merger would not harm the competition, in other words, rejecting the ACCC’s reason for blocking the deal last year.
The judgement that was made revealed a plan, that is, to challenge the dominance of Telstra Corp Ltd and Singapore Telecommunication Optus in the Australian market by handing over to Vodafone (a mobile phone company) & TPG (an internet company) access network. A months’ time has been granted to make an appeal.
Whereas, TPG founder and Executive Chairman, David Teoh said in a statement, that they were very pleased with the Federal Court decision although they still need approvals by their shareholders and other regulators. Credit Suisse analysts added by saying that the ruling was consistent with their expectations and they had already factored in a successful merger.
On the other hand, the ruling was a blow to the ACCC which has had decisions to block some of the country’s biggest M&A deals of recent years overturned by the court, including the TPG-Vodafone deal.”Australian consumers have lost a once-in-a-generation opportunity for stronger competition and cheaper mobile telecommunications services with this merger” according to ACCC Chairman Rod Sims.
Shares of Hutchison jumped to a quarter, while TPG shares increased 11%. Telstra, which dominates the Australian mobile and internet markets, had risen earlier but fell up to 2.4% after the court ruling and SingTel’s Singapore-listed shares went down by 1.2%.
“This merger gives a lot more certainty that there will be a strong 5G player in the market. We have confirmation that we will have three 5G players,” said Vodafone Hutchison Australia CEO Iñaki Berroeta. The ACCC has argued that TPG may yet build a 5G network but TPG had ruled out revisiting the network on grounds because other parts suppliers provided were too expensive.
Telstra CEO Andy Penn declined to comment on the effects of competition with TPG in the 5G market. “Frankly, it’s an already an incredible and intense competitive market,” Penn said. And Murray King, chief financial officer of SingTel-owned Optus, said, “The company would see how the merged entity looks, in order to drive their operations”. He also added, “We think we are well-placed but we don’t take competitions lightly”.