Kail met them again over the summer that year and built up a rapport. Less than a year later LHTC Broadband ditched its US equipment vendor and went with the Chinese company,
Huawei Technologies, because it was offering equipment that could do the job at two thirds of the price. In fact, the rural carrier market has been one of the few areas of success in the US for Huawei, which has been shut out of the wider network equipment market due to
Washington’s concerns about national security issues.
“It was worth the risk of rolling the dice because it obviously could help us save a lot of money,” said Kail, who did due diligence on Huawei and found no proof that there was a security issue with its products – questions which have been raised multiple times by Washington.
