hi KYli,It is not just the design and manufacture but also the tech. At the beginning of the 5G tech war, Qualcomm and Nokia and Verizon supported the millimeter wave and Huawei supported the centimeter wave of sub-6. mmWave has better speed and capacity but not good at coverage and vulnerable to signal interference. After initial deployment, mmWave is just not ready yet. Verizon, At&t and many telecom vendors were forced to redeploy their resources to sub-6 5G which is Huawei specialty. That means it would take at least a few years for them to make their 5G ready for mass deployment and wide coverage. For the last few months, the US government has been forced to procure spectrum from the military and others to be used for sub-6 to compensate mmWave shortcoming.
Americans wouldn't be conceded that it has made a mistake and lost the 5G war. So it would continue to pursue mmWave and would try to compensate its shortcoming by using sub-6. On the other hand, China would use sub-6 but would enhance its performance by using mmWave in urban area. This mistake would cost Americans to fall a few years behind China in term of 5G tech and deployment. It doesn't mean the US won't have 5G. It just means the US 5G would not be fully ready for sometime and probably many resources were wasted.
As for Europe, most European countries don't have the US problem so using sub-6 5G wouldn't be a problem. The issue is the telecom equipment providers Ericsson and Nokia have fallen behind Huawei. However, Ericsson is still very competitive and not far behind Huawei. It just needs to offer better solution, less expensive products, and more energy efficient equipment with less need of maintenance. Nokia is the one that has a major problem as its chipsets needed to redesign and not ready. Nokia has many delays and telecom vendors are not happy about the quality of its equipment. Although, many telecom vendors were forced to use Ericsson and Nokia so they do have the time to get their shortcomings fix and their equipment would be deployed even if not as efficient and more difficult to maintain.
A great summary as usual, now a question , how many years in your opinion is HUAWEI advantage,? Can Huawei had the financial , technical and enough manpower to advance in 6g? with the chip problem will Huawei advantage will be reduced? sorry for being a nuisance.