Re: yes yes yes..
there are american companies? well shit - this is newsworthy in its own right.
Sure! There is of course Intel.. But they dabbled in mobile and then gave up. Then there's the $20bn behemoth, Qualcomm. But they're a fabless patent licensing machine, who gained notoriety for their works in 3G & 4G technologies.. Mainly pay up for CDMA patents or face endless litigation.
So that prompted industry to seek alternatives, which are included in 5G, which means Qualcomm faces declining revenues. But such are the joys of business. Or international standardisation efforts, which generally involve interested parties lobbying for inclusion of techs they hold patents for, or horsetrading via patent pooling to keep out new entrants.
Then there's the problem for badge engineering companies who make tin, or rely on third parties to make the tin for them. Oddly, this has meant China, which meant a lot of technology transfer and helping Chinese industries develop the knowledge to compete against their former partners. Which has also lead to some current challenges, like Covid and the current supply chain disruption. But that was one of the government concerns wrt Huawei, ie what may happen if supply of their tin stops for political reasons.
So we live in interesting times. Bankruptcies, consolidation, competition and cost savings have shrunk the supply of 'critical' infrastructure devices. Subsidising is one possibility, but only really works if there are practical 'friendly' suppliers to choose from.. And those aren't without their own risks, ie Nortel/Ericsson are EU, so potentially caught up in EU-US trade spats. Other tech might be Israeli, so has it's own political considerations. There are longer term options, like R&D tax breaks and subsidising manufacturing, but they also get caught up in political interference, like EU state aid rules.
Meanwhile, Huawei can sell to RoW who can then compete more effectively due to better infrastructure, or lower costs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
