Huawei launches consulting arm for 5G implementation
Chinese tech firm Huawei – one of the world’s largest providers of 5G equipment and services – has launched a new consulting arm to support telecom businesses across the globe with the rollout of 5G.
The new arm – Huawei Carrier Consulting Services (HCCS) – will offer services across four broad consulting domains, namely strategy, business, operations and networks. These services will cover some of the key challenges at various stages of 5G implementation, from the investment phase to the product development and distribution stages.
Demand for such services is expected to skyrocket in the near future, as a growing share of businesses make the jump to 5G. Globally, 5G is seen as the ticket to propelling digital transformations and driving unprecedented tech revolutions in the business environment, by revoutionalising the connectivity landscape.
As some of the largest global markets hop on the 5G bandwagon, telecom carriers have a tremendous opportunity to capitalise on the shift. A Kearney report from last year predicted that ASEAN telecom providers alone could be reaping additional benefits of more than $6 billion within five years of 5G’s global launch.
However, 5G’s far -reaching effects have prompted an expanded perception of the role that telecom carriers have to play in its integration. Where carriers were previously seen as vendors, many now expect them to provide a more holistic set of services, helping businesses with 5G implementation and providing solutions to key challenges along the way.
HCCS will help vendors assume this role, by giving them a complete overview of the new tech and its potential in various domains. Huawei and global vendors are likely to benefit from this scenario, barring a few key challenges that present themselves in the global rollout.
For one, many have taken issue with 5G tech in itself. For instance, 5G is expected to have more transmitters than earlier networks, which will make location tracing hyper accurate. This has naturally raised privacy concerns among many consumers. 5G technology also uses higher frequency radio waves than other pervious networks, raising concerns around the additional radiation generated and its effects on human health.
Experts have attempted to dispel these concerns, although a certain amount of resistance has already built up towards the new technology. In addition to tackling this resistance, Huawei is facing more specific concerns relating to its position as a 5G service provider.
Suspicions have emerged in many markets that Huawei’s ownership has links to the Chinese state, which makes their control of highly accurate and far reaching connectivity infrastructure a significant threat. Despite officially being an employee-owned company, Huawei has become the source for political uproar in many markets, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, the company remains the largest vendor of connectivity equipment in the world, and will no doubt carve out a substantial market for its 5G products and services as global adoption kicks off. The new Huawei Carrier Consulting Services practice is a step to tap into the advisory and implementation market.