Earlier this evening, Reuters reported that the U.S. Commerce Department is expected to extend a reprieve given to Huawei Technologies.
Expiring on 19 August, Huawei has been operating under a 90 day reprieve granted back in May, and it seems now almost certain that a further 90 day exemption will be granted to the Chinese technology giant.
Commerce initially allowed Huawei to purchase some American-made goods in May shortly after blacklisting the company in a move aimed at minimising disruption for its customers, many of which operate networks in rural America.
An extension will renew an agreement set to lapse on August 19, continuing the Chinese company’s ability to maintain existing telecommunications networks and provide software updates to Huawei handsets.
It’s worth noting, though, that as Huawei has already negotiated access to Android Q and updates for it that this further reprieve may be more useful for updating existing handsets rather than bringing Android Q to new ones.
At the time of writing, neither the US Commerce department nor Huawei offered any comment. Giving the timing, neither likely will comment until the existing exemption expires on 19 August US time, which means we might hear more sometime Tuesday n Australia.
