You would think that one less big customer would be bad news for infrastructure providers like China’s Huawei, but not so, the company said, when asked about the proposed $39 billion mega-merger between AT&T and T-Mobile USA.
Huawei is second behind only to Ericsson among telecom equipment providers. There will be plenty of integration issues between the two telecom giants that will require help from Huawei and others, a company vice president said in an interview with Forbes. Among the possibilities, Bill Plummer said, are base stations, software services and new cellular towers.
And that’s not all. Plummer sees other opportunities as AT&T will likely be forced to give up some of its spectrum to maintain fair competition. That means Huawei could get involved in new spectrum deals as new competitors show interest.
In order to win contracts, Huawei will have to convince U.S. lawmakers that it’s not linked to the Chinese government. The company recently posted an open letter on its website to address the concerns, and Plummer told Forbes that it’s getting good reaction so far.
The AT&T-T-Mobile merger still needs regulatory approval, and could take up to a year to get.
