Indian telcos' love for China's Huawei, ZTE continues amid security threats

The global controversy over the security threat posed by Huawei and other Chinese firms has spilled over to India in the form of a battle between service providers and domestic equipment manufacturers

Debt-laden telecom service providers, fighting a bruising battle in the marketplace, love them. That is why, on Monday, the Cellular Operators Association of India shot off a letter to the Department of Telecom (DoT) vigorously defending Huawei and urging the government not to take any “arbitrary” action in banning the equipment manufacturer. 

Chinese equipment players offer them equipment 30 per cent cheaper than Europeans, throw in extended free maintenance schemes and even rope in their country’s banks to provide cheap long-term loans, they say. Ban them and capital costs will shoot up. 

Taking them on are Indian telecom equipment manufacturers. Despite all