India has reportedly excluded Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE from its initial 5G trials, instead inviting suppliers such as Ericsson, Cisco, Samsung, and Nokia to participate.
This development mirrors a wider trend: several major markets have recently moved away from Huawei equipment. For example, South Korea’s largest operator declined to work with Huawei, and other countries have expressed reservations about allowing certain Chinese vendors to build critical telecommunications infrastructure.
According to ET Telecom, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said the government had formally contacted Cisco, Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia, and received positive responses to begin 5G trials. She also confirmed that Huawei was excluded from those trials.
While Sundararajan did not explicitly name ZTE, reports indicate that India did not engage with China’s second-largest telecom equipment maker for the trials either.
The statement did not specify whether the exclusions were driven by security concerns similar to those cited by the United States and Australia. ET Telecom reported that Huawei is in dialogue with Indian authorities about any related issues.
Huawei has faced long-standing restrictions in the United States and recent limits in Australia. The U.S. has barred Huawei from participating in certain infrastructure projects, and Australia has prohibited Huawei from bidding on parts of its fiber infrastructure while allowing the company’s equipment in some legacy mobile networks.
Concerns about foreign influence in 5G networks have intensified because 5G will support critical applications—autonomous vehicles, smart-city systems, and remote medical procedures among them—where security and network integrity are paramount.
Huawei strongly criticized Australia’s decision to restrict its participation in 5G rollouts, calling the move politically motivated and asserting it was not based on a transparent, fact-based process. In a public statement, the company denied that Chinese law authorizes the government to compel firms to install backdoors or surveillance features in telecom equipment, and said it had provided an independent analysis to the Australian government to that effect.
Technically, Huawei remains a leading supplier of telecom equipment, notable for its advances in Massive-MIMO and other 5G-relevant technologies. Some industry observers argue that certain Huawei innovations are ahead of competitors in performance and deployment.
ZTE has also faced challenges. Earlier, U.S. actions forced ZTE to suspend operations after allegations it violated export controls by shipping equipment to Iran and North Korea. The resulting penalties and restrictions reportedly cost the company around $3 billion. Although some measures were later rolled back, the episode raised further scrutiny of Chinese vendors operating in global markets.
India’s decision to leave Huawei and ZTE out of initial 5G trials reflects broader global caution about the role of specific vendors in next-generation networks. Governments and operators are increasingly weighing technical capability alongside national-security, supply-chain resilience, and geopolitical considerations when selecting partners for 5G deployment.
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