Bite Latvija will not suspend its partnership with Huawei

RIGA - Despite the security scandals involving Chinese technology company Huawei in recent months, Latvian mobile phone operator Bite Latvija will not suspend its partnership with the company and will go forward with its plans to introduce a 5G network with the help of Huawei, Bite Lavija technical director Gints Butens told LETA.

He said that Bite Latvija has no reason to doubt Huawei's credibility at the moment, and added that the company carried out audits on a regular basis and frequently involves independent experts.

At the same time, he said that Bite Latvija has not received any complaints from other international telecommunications companies like Deutche Telekom, Elisa, Orange, Telia Sonera, Vodafone and others which have teamed up with Huawei regarding any security concerns involving the Chinese company.

As reported, Bite Latvija and Huawei have signed a memorandum of understanding on the establishment of 5G network infrastructure in Latvia, including the construction of a 5G base station in Riga in 2019 as well as the development of Narrowband Internet of Things network throughout the country.

Bite Latvija is already testing the new 5G technologies called Massive Mimo, which is being created at the Huawei laboratory.

Currently Bite has 800 base stations across Latvia, of which 180 are 4G+, 32 with 4G++, and 10 with 4.5G technologies. 30 new base stations will be added by the end of the year.

LETA also reported, in 2017, Bite Latvija posted EUR 91.642 million in turnover - 16 percent increase on 2016, while the company's profit increased 1.7 times to EUR 12.664 million.

Bite Latvija was registered in 2005, its share capital is EUR 99.085 million. The company belongs to Bite Lietuva UAB.