The U.S ban on Huawei set the tone.

Australia was quick to follow suit.

Now it looks like Europe and parts of Asia may enact partial bans on Huawei technology.

The Chinese telecom giant is not completely blacklisted, but they face a ton of scrutiny and a long uphill battle in the fight for 5G market share.

TelecomLead.com reports:

"Blocking of Huawei from supplying 5G mobile network may result into loss of up to $63 billion in the GDP of top eight technology markets, and at least $4.7 billion in case of India, by 2035, a report of Oxford Economics commissioned by the Chinese telecom gear maker has claimed."

So who fills the void?

The answer may surprise you.

The Fastest 5G Speeds on Record Belong To…

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), commonly known as Ericsson, holds the title for the fastest 5G speeds on record.

According to WebProNews, "Ericsson researchers have set a new record for mmWave 5G, hitting 4.3Gbps download speeds."

That’s 4 gigabytes per second!

To put 4.3Gbps in context, that is the equivalent of downloading one hour of ultra-high-definition, or 4K, content from a streaming service in just 14 seconds

This is game-changing and it’s why so many experts say 5G will disrupt entire industries. 5G, of course, enables a slew of new technologies. Ones that will revolutionize the world.

And there’s a strong belief in some circles that the Swedish telecom giant has exactly what it takes to fill the void created by the Huawei scandal.

Bold Talk Upends 5G Landscape

The coronavirus may have put Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, Spain on hold this year. But that didn’t stop Ericsson from calling out Huawei for a 5G showdown.

PhoneArena.com reports that at an interim event in London:

"Ericsson claimed that it (and not Huawei) is the global leader in providing 5G networking equipment. The company's executive vice president Fredrik Jejdling said, ‘We've deployed 24 [live] networks across the world [in 14 countries]. We've been first to deploy networks across four continents. So for us, it's hard to see anyone ahead of us currently…we believe we have a competitive portfolio that is on a par or ahead of our competitors’."

It’s bold talk that has a lot of credence considering current geopolitical relations between the U.S. and China.

Publicly Backed by the U.S.A

The U.S. government has publicly stated on more than one occasion it strongly backs alternatives to Huawei technology and it appears after some back and forth the U.S. is ready to levy even more penalties against Huawei.

Politico recently reported the U.S. Defense Department is once again in support of new rules that would limit the scope of Huawei’s operations.

Specifically, the new rules would outlaw some of the loopholes being used by some U.S. companies to continue supplying their products to Huawei.

And Ericsson technology may not make many headlines here in the States, but I can assure you it is cutting edge.

Just last week Ericsson unveiled a number of updates to its 5G network. The updates include a dual-mode 5G core with cloud-native infrastructure, AI powered networks, and an energy management system that can reduce opex and carbon dioxide emissions, reports SDXCentral.

Having a cutting edge cloud-native infrastructure will be a crucial factor in determining who gets new contracts to build out 5G networks. And even if Huawei’s tech is that much better than everyone else's (which it’s not) who knows when they will be able to operate in full.

With demand for 5G already peaking there’s no time to wait for Huawei.

If you’re familiar with the concept of a power vacuum this is my stock market version of one.

And in Europe, I’m betting Ericsson takes the 5G crown.