Re:Age of surveillance: the fish is rotting from its head
by varjag on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:14PM
(#2107966)
It is a good point. I am aware of Huawei, although to my knowledge it is not used in Belarus to a noticeable extent. No doubt of course it could change if this hypothetic embargo is introduced.
There are however subtleties. The government and network operators use services of big system integrators in the region: Baltic states, Russia and Ukraine. The proximity of many vendors creates competitive situation, but if only Chinese vector is available, the only viable option would be Moscow-based Huawei suppliers. This is bound to create many problems with maintaining the existing infrastructure, and the vendor will be able to dictate the price, driving up the costs of enforcement and reducing its scope. If Ruissian dealerships are used, it also creates a dependency on Putin, relations with whom for Lukashenko have not been friendly at all lately.
There are however subtleties. The government and network operators use services of big system integrators in the region: Baltic states, Russia and Ukraine. The proximity of many vendors creates competitive situation, but if only Chinese vector is available, the only viable option would be Moscow-based Huawei suppliers. This is bound to create many problems with maintaining the existing infrastructure, and the vendor will be able to dictate the price, driving up the costs of enforcement and reducing its scope. If Ruissian dealerships are used, it also creates a dependency on Putin, relations with whom for Lukashenko have not been friendly at all lately.