The war for 5G faces the United States and China

The battle for the evolution of the 5G and its deployment in the world is the last tense point between the United States and China (Reuters)

The Cold War of the 21st century is A question about the control of technology 5G, the fifth generation of broadband, which will enable a link between machines and people as never before seen in the History of Humanity. The US and China are facing the leadership of this fourth industrial revolution who will define what will be the preponderant power of the next 50 years.

5G is the first network built to serve sensors, robots, autonomous vehicles and other devices that will continuously feed large amounts of data to yourself. Something that will allow factories, shops, large buildings and even whole cities to work with less human intervention in everyday operations. I will also allow a greater use of tools of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. This is believed the bond could be 100 times faster than the current with 4G.

But what's good for everyday life is also good for the information services and cyber attacks. The 5G system is a physical network of switches and routers. But it is more dependent on complex program layouts that are much more adaptable and constantly updated, invisible for users, as well as iPhone automatically updates during loading at night. That means that which governs the networks, controls the flow of information and can change, redirect or copy data without the user having an idea of ​​what's happening. Who rules the network, controls the knowledge.

Donald Trump's White House is convinced that there must be only one winner in this technological race, and the loser must be exiled. "The 5G race is on the way and the United States must win¨, the president said in recent speech. For months, the White House is working on an executive order prohibits US companies to use Chinese origin equipment in critical network telecommunications. This goes far beyond the existing rules that prohibit such equipment only in government networks. The nerve of Chinese technology has long been existed in the United States, driven by the fear that the Chinese can insert a "back door" in telecommunications and computer networks that allow the country's security services to intercept military, governmental and enterprise communications from all parts of the planet. Chinese espionage in companies and offices of the US government is constant. I am cared for by pirates working for the Beijing Security Ministry. And that spying device also has an unlimited access to the information dealt with by its technology companies. Where Chinese main companies enter Huawei, the spies of that country enter. "It is important to remember that Chinese companies' relations with the Chinese government are not similar to the relations of private companies with governments in the West"he explained to New York TimesWilliam Evanina, director of the National Anti-Intelligence and Security Center of the United States. "The China Intelligence Agency of 2017 forces Chinese companies to support, assist and cooperate in Chinese national espionage, wherever they work."

Washington's preoccupation grew while governments around the world began to decide which equipment providers will build their 5G networks. Jeremy Hunt, the British Foreign Affairs Minister, was in Washington last month and, according to the British press, at each meeting he held the problem and asked what technology plans Britain would take for their 5G networks. The London government, beaten in the vocabulary of Brexit, maintains an oil relationship with Beijing and will have to balance the pressure of both sides. Poland also felt Washington's military hand when negotiating the construction of a US military base – the Polish press called "Fort Trump" -. They demanded on exchange that they end up their relationship with Chinese high tech companies. And even Germany, where most of the giant fiber optic lines in Europe are linked and Huawei wants to build the switches that make the system function, felt the bitter breath of the superpower.

Any economic benefit of the use of Chinese telecommunications equipment is much overwhelmed by the security threat to the NATO alliance, was the message. The Pentagon affirms that the world has a new weapon racing, in terms of technology rather than conventional weapons, and that it represents an important danger to American national security. In time when the most powerful weapons, except for the nuclear, are controlled by the cyberpool, The country that dominates the 5G network will receive economic, spy and military advantage for much this century.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been challenging but has not yet made the final decision. The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, gave his official approval to the Huawei 5G team, with the exception of some critical components. Most of Asia, Africa and Latin America welcomed Huawei with open arms. Only Australia and New Zealand are totally cooperating with the United States. Japan decided to ban Huawei alone. Huawei, who is already advancing in technology, exceeds his rivals in prices. Their equipment costs up to 40% less than Nokia and Ericsson, currently its only competitors, and none of the companies can match Huawei's generous financial conditions. The Huawei market is now more than the combination of Nokia and Ericsson.

Of course, China works on all fronts to show that it is at the vanguard of 5G. By the end of March, a telephone operator China Unicom presented a 360-degree 3D video at the Chongqing International Fair, which woke up the admiration of the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and officials who attended. The images were four times more acute than the highest resolution available on Netflix. The direct transmission of billions of bits of digital data has been 20 times faster than current cellular phone networks with 4G technology. China Unicom showed a technology of 5G designed by Huawei.

In this technological war there are three fundamental battles. The first is to provide the equipment in which the new networks are built; The second is widely deploying the services that include the link nodes and routers; Finally, the development of a whole package: software, devices, services and industrial processes. The United States has already lost the first race and may lose the second, but it can not be allowed to remain behind in the third, which brings the main economic benefits. Of course, the Washington-based government commission banned Chinese companies to build a "inevitable" infrastructure network within the US and also Huawei components in all the networks of the country. "US technology companies have the right to refuse to cooperate with government requests to spy, to beg if they are pressured and spread spies to the media," said Timothy Heath, an international defender researcher at Rand Corporation. "Chinese companies do not have these options. Legally, they are forced to cooperate with any request from the Chinese government" Trump's administration carries out the same argument to push the rest of the world to avoid the expansion of Huawei 5G and threatens to break the links of intelligence with any nation that resists.

Currently, according to public information, there are three important competitors internationally able to build networks 5G: China, the United States and South Korea. Operators in all three countries (plus one in Switzerland) claim to have introduced the first 5G services to a limited number of mobile customers, and Japan must launch its test service soon. But the US networks, offered by Verizon in 22 cities, have irregular covers. In social networks there are many mockings to the company for those failures. The rest of the operators of mobile telephony do not show signs of offering 5G national coverage before 2021. China leads, according to the technicians, to one or two years of advance in these developments. The Beijing government has given absolute priority and account, as in all projects undertaken in the world, with its own funding. In any case, the United States maintains the vanguard in the search of innovative ways of doing Big Data work for businesses and consumers. This, especially, thanks to technology giants such as Google and Amazon, which spends billions of dollars for the exploration, and floating ecosystem of new technologies. This will make the investment in 5G exponentially increase in a short time. Bear video games and entertainment at another level; educational and advertising content; and refrigerators, clocks, buildings, shops, etc. which send sensitive data to remote servers that use applications for artificial intelligence. The economic impact of these services would be much more important than the construction of equipment and the installation of networks. It is expected that 5G applications will generate $ 4 billion worldwide only during the first two years. In contrast, the total world market projected for the installation of 5G networks over the next four years is significantly lower, at 57,000 million, according to the IDC research company. Perhaps, retaining dominance in applications will allow the United States to remain the main factor of technological influence in the world. "Think of what the United States has won economically, wisely and warriors with the first domain of online technologies and how China has had to fight for the future," says Heath by Rand Corp. "It's likely that 5G will be developed in a similar way." Finally, the United States may end up giving thanks to China, and especially Huawei, for the installation of the main network tubes that will boost the companies that are most interested in them. But the war will last and will always be more bloody. The rest of the world will suffer the consequences.