Huawei Lands in the US

Last week Martin Creaner of TM Forum fame was blogging about the importance of Chinese capital in setting the standards for future wireless networks. The growing muscle of Chinese service providers, who are probably spending about a quarter of all capital invested in networks in 2009, may well accelerate vendor adoption of TD-LTE. Now it looks like a US service provider may be providing Chinese equipment manufacturers with a first American beachhead and evolution to 4G.

Cox Communications has awarded a supply deal for its new wireless network to Huawei. The contract concerns CDMA equipment with a ready upgrade path to proto-4G. Huawei has been an incredible growth story over the past five years, with last year’s revenue growing by about 50% over 2007 in ‘contract’ terms (not the same as audited GAAP revenue, but who cares). What makes this all the more remarkable is the near-absence of US sales in the mix. While Huawei has established itself as a recognized Tier I supplier in Europe as well as in emerging markets, the rapidly consolidating US carrier environment hasn’t been as open.

Call it the “Great Wall of Washington.”

What will be interesting from a telecom software perspective is whether Huawei will follow in the ‘old world’ model of coupling proprietary EMS and support software to its equipment business, or whether it will use an open model to accelerate market adoption even further, and drive down the cost of integrating its technology into service provider networks.