According to foreign media reports, recently US government officials said that in order to avoid the lock-in of telecommunications network equipment suppliers, the United States should acquire a controlling stake in European telecommunications equipment suppliers, and AT & T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson poured cold water on this proposal.

Randall Stephenson said in an interview with CNBC: “The government holds shares in private companies and develops private solutions. I don’t think this is a good idea.” He added that the United States should seek to explore open, software-based solutions to “Innovate the way we get out of this competition quagmire” and “ensure that we are not tied to a single supplier.”

Figure: Randall Stephenson.

He said, “We need to win with innovation and software, not just with government orders.”

Previously, US Attorney General William Barr suggested that the United States acquire a controlling stake in Ericsson or Nokia to strengthen its influence on the network infrastructure market and reduce its dependence on Huawei equipment.

Reuters reported that Cevian Capital, an activist shareholder with an 8.4% stake in Ericsson, was open to the idea in a public statement, saying it was “clearly beneficial to Sweden, to Ericsson and shareholders”.

The U.S. goal is to develop Huawei’s global alternatives to avoid the country’s so-called security threats from Huawei, but US government officials are not in agreement on how to achieve this goal.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow recently suggested using open RAN as a viable option, noting that the US government is pushing AT&T and other companies in this area.  However, William Barr subsequently mocked the idea, seeing it as a “completely untested” approach that “takes many years to get started, and even if it works, it will take ten years to usher in gold period”.

Regarding plans to invest in Ericsson and Nokia, William Barr said: “Injecting our huge market and financial strength into one or both of these companies will make them an extremely strong competitor and eliminate people’s long-lasting concerns. “