The US imposed a trade block on Huawei and stopped US companies doing anything with the company. This prevented Google from delivering Gmail, YouTube and Google Play plus many other apps to about-to-appear Huawei and Honor Android handsets.
In short, all the Honor and Huawei handsets on sale now are fine (and have all the Google goodness), but the future devices will lack that.
In the UK, Huawei has a massive involvement in our communication infrastructure. The mobile masts you connect to will probably use Huawei kit and, if you’ve got FTTP (Fibre To The Premises, AKA FTTH) or FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet), you’ll probably find that there’s a Huawei Echolife or a Huawei ONT box in your house right now.
However, the lovely Mr Trump disagrees strongly with the UK’s decision to allow Huawei to supply “non-core” parts of the new 5G networks. Indeed, a US delegation is meeting UK ministers to show the evidence they’ve obtained which highlight the security risks of continuing to use Huawei kit.
Now the British intelligence and US intelligence services are set to have a heated debate about all this, as the US warned that the British 5G decision is “madness”.
A Huawei spokesperson told us..
We are a private company which has supplied 3G, 4G and broadband equipment to the UK’s telecoms companies for 15 years. British experts are clear our technology does not pose a security risk.