CTO Enrique Blanco: “I have found no evidence of a security risk.”

Blanco of Telefonica is one of the most respected CTOs in world telecom, winning many awards. He’s engineered networks for 35 years, now in charge of hundreds of millions of lines at Telefonica. He’s been deeply involved in 3G, 4G, and 5G. His fiber network is one of the top two in Europe.

“We have no evidence of back doors … we monitor every day,”  he tells Reuters. Blanco was announcing that Telefonica and Telefonica/O2 would add a second 5G supplier alongside Huawei. That’s pragmatic and protects TEF from political problems.

Almost no one outside the security apparatus believes Huawei is spying for China. Even German Chancellor Merkel, who has access to security files, hasn’t seen any reason to believe it.