Public Perception On Huawei’s Global Race For 5G- A Case Study of India V.S. USA

At the peak of the digital era, 5G is sweeping the globe as the next pivotal revolution in technology. The fifth generation of cellular networks provides exciting developments in the forms of peak transmission speeds, reduced latency, increased network capacity as well as availability. These improvements present incredible opportunities for all sectors ranging from education and medicine to infrastructure and manufacturing, along with the inevitable economic growth. Simultaneously, the implementation of 5G technology has raised various concerns amongst the public. Ever-changing cyberspace poses threats to the safety of users, as with the implementation of any new technology. Moreover, as Chinese firm Huawei spearheaded the onset of this new technology, there were privacy concerns over user data collection and sharing on grounds of Huawei’s ties with the Chinese government. Several countries, led by the United States, have since adopted a stance against the Chinese 5G and banned providers such as Huawei. This set off a global race for 5G, a massive geopolitical shakeup at a time when tensions between the US and China already soared. Our study aims to evaluate whether the global implementation and demand for 5G and the concerns around it, affect the public perception of this technology. We resort to online surveying to collect responses from a wide population sample from the United States and India, as we focused on the case studies of these countries in particular. Our data consisted of information about the public’s awareness and perception of the benefits, concerns, and geopolitical matters surrounding 5G. Our analysis consists of a range of descriptives and variance tests to identify the signs that factors such as country, operating system, and carrier provider held on the public perception. Cognizant of certain trends and limitations, we propose solutions in order to remedy the challenges surrounding the public perception of 5G technology in the hopes of efficient global implementation of 5G technology.