Oracle was silent Monday about its status as the likely buyer of TikTok’s U.S. business after Microsoft disclosed that TikTok parent ByteDance rejected its offer. Oracle CEO Safra Catz put TikTok questions off limits at the very top of her fiscal Q1 call last week. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed on CNBC Monday that the Trump administration got "a proposal over the weekend" for making Oracle TikTok's "trusted technology partner, with Oracle making many representations for national security issues." The proposal includes the "commitment to create TikTok Global as a U.S.-headquartered company with 20,000 new jobs," he said. It will be reviewed this week at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. before a "recommendation" is made to President Donald Trump, he said. Microsoft was confident its proposal “would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” said the company Sunday. “We would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combating disinformation.” Trump’s Aug. 6 executive order bans transactions with ByteDance and WeChat parent Tencent after Sept. 20 if their U.S. operations aren’t sold to American partners (see 2008070032). ByteDance and TikTok sued Aug. 24 to block the EO (see 2008240047).
Amazon, Edge Cable and China Mobile hope to operate their private fiber cable network connecting central California and the Philippines by Q4 2022, they said in an FCC international Bureau application Thursday. They would use the 7,460-mile CAP-1 line capacity for services offered by their affiliates or would provide bulk capacity to wholesale and enterprise customers. They asked to operate on a non-common carrier basis, citing "robust competition" on the U.S./Philippines route. They asked for approval by Nov. 1, 2021, to meet their construction schedule.
More than 105 5G networks are deployed worldwide, said 5G Americas Thursday, based on a report by Rysavy Research. The report predicted “billions” of IoT devices will be deployed over the next decade. “Operators are transitioning to standalone architecture, lowering network latencies, improving coverage, addressing industrial IoT, and simplifying operations,” the report said. Beamforming and massive multiple-input and multiple-output "are enabling use of spectrum above 6 GHz, as well as improving performance in lower bands.”
Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Wednesday DHS is “working with our interagency and industry colleagues to protect our information and communications infrastructure from intellectual property theft and nefarious data collection by China.” In a “state of the homeland” address, Wolf said he ordered the launch of a China Working Group and singled out the work of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which “is at the forefront guarding against nation-state actors’ cyber-enabled espionage and malicious influence activity aimed at all levels of government and industry.”
China on “multiple occasions” has protested the Trump administration’s “unreasonable oppression of Chinese enterprises” on false national security grounds, said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Monday when asked about reports that DOD is seeking to impose export restrictions on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s largest chipmaker. The administration “for some time” has been “abusing” its authority “to impose all sorts of restrictive measures on Chinese companies without producing any solid evidence” of wrongdoing, he said. “This is stark bullying. China firmly opposes that.” SMIC has been “fully compliant with all rules and laws” throughout its “long-term strategic partnerships with multiple U.S.-based semiconductor equipment suppliers,” said the company Saturday. SMIC “manufactures semiconductors and provides services solely for civilian and commercial end-users and end-uses,” it said. “We have no relationship with the Chinese military.” Any statements to the contrary are “false accusations,” it said. It’s open to “sincere and transparent” talks with the administration to resolve “potential misunderstandings,” it said. DOD didn’t comment Tuesday.
Global July semiconductor revenue increased 4.9% year on year to $35.2 billion, up 2.1% sequentially, reported the Semiconductor Industry Association Thursday. The global industry “has remained largely resistant to global macroeconomic headwinds” -- “but substantial market uncertainty remains for the rest of the year,” said SIA. Sales into the Americas in July rose 26% year on year.
Though SpaceX asked to move much of its proposed mega constellation to lower orbit, it hasn't acknowledged potential solutions to the increased collision risks that would create with Amazon's Kuiper mega constellation, Amazon officials told aides to all FCC commissioners, per an ex parte post Wednesday. Even if space safety problems are addressed, potential interference issues necessitate putting SpaceX's entire modified constellation in the non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service processing round that launched in March, it said. Amazon petitioned to deny SpaceX's lower orbit ask (see 2007140001). SpaceX didn't comment Thursday.
President Donald Trump's administration “is committed to bold, decisive action" against China that protects U.S. national and economic security interests, said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross during a Wednesday Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security virtual event. He cited BIS' additional export restrictions on Huawei (see 2008170043) and Trump’s Aug. 6 executive order banning U.S. transactions with the parent companies of TikTok and WeChat. TikTok parent ByteDance is suing the administration to block the EO (see 2008240047). The new restrictions on Huawei “directly impact” the company’s “ability to work through third parties to harness advanced U.S. technology to meet the Communist Party’s objectives, and they will level the playing field by ensuring that both U.S. and foreign companies must receive the Commerce Department license to sell covered products to Huawei, Ross said. He said the TikTok/WeChat ban is necessary because the app’s parent companies “are in China, and these mobile apps collect personal and proprietary information that constitutes possible threats to our national security, foreign policy and economy.” Some experts predict Trump’s re-election campaign will use the Huawei restrictions to depict him as tough on China (see 2008270051). Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, in The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, said Trump tried to use Huawei as leverage in the U.S.-China trade talks.
Qualcomm, Casa Systems and Ericsson completed the first extended-range 5G new radio data call over a millimeter wave network in Victoria, Australia, June 20, they said Monday. Distance was 2.36 miles, showing suitability for fixed wireless access services and opportunities to use 5G infrastructure in urban, suburban and rural environments, said the companies: With the reach and performance to offer fixed wireless as a widespread “last mile” broadband option, network operators will be able to use existing mobile networks to deliver fixed wireless services and expand service to new areas at multi-gigabit speeds, with low latency.
President Donald Trump’s warning that he will remove all U.S. business from China in a second term got a sharp rebuke Friday from the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry. To threaten the “relocation of production capacity” as Trump did is “political manipulation that puts partisan and personal interests above U.S. national interests,” said a ministry spokesperson. “The perverse practice of going against the voluntary will of the vast business community, forcibly scrapping existing cooperation between countries, and coercing companies with regard to their normal investment and operation runs counter to the law of market economy and will eventually lead to self-harm.” China will "own our country” if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is elected, Trump told the Republican National Convention Thursday evening.