GERMANY released draft security guidelines Tuesday for next-generation wireless networks that stopped short of banning Huawei, as the United States warned again it would reconsider intelligence sharing with allies that use the Chinese firm’s equipment.

The Federal Network Agency catalog of conditions for suppliers of new 5G networks include requiring certification of critical components and ensuring trustworthiness of manufacturers, without singling out Huawei for exclusion.

“We are not taking a pre-emptive decision to ban any actor, or any company,” Germany’s government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

Huawei said it welcomed the German Government’s move to “create a level playing field” for 5G suppliers, in which “all vendors are equally and fairly welcome to participate in the construction of 5G networks if they fulfill the security requirements.”

The United States has piled pressure on its allies to shut out Huawei, the leading telecom equipment vendor with a global market share of 28 percent, saying its gear poses a security threat, a claim the Shenzhen-based company has repeatedly denied. The Trump administration cut off Huawei’s access to U.S. technology in May, part of a broader geopolitical feud between United States and China over technology and trade.

“If there’s technology that’s untrusted deployed in their networks, then we have to reassess how we share information with countries like Germany,” said Rob Strayer, the U.S. State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy.

Strayer said that along with testing equipment and software for vulnerabilities, governments should also take into account the background of the manufacturer’s home country.

The United States hasn’t ruled out punitive measures aimed at allies that refuse to ban Huawei equipment on their 5G networks, Strayer said last month.

German operators are all customers of Huawei and have warned that banning the Chinese vendor would add years of delays and billions of dollars in costs to launching 5G networks.

Mobile operators in Europe are queuing up to buy Huawei’s gear for their next-generation 5G networks. Of 65 commercial deals that Huawei has signed, half are with European customers building ultra-fast fifth-generation networks, Yang Chaobin, head of Huawei’s 5G business, said Tuesday in Zurich.

New 5G networks promise superfast download speeds and reduced signal delay that can power a wave of innovations such as factory robots and remote surgery. With billions of devices, sensors and cameras expected to be hooked up, 5G networks will be far more ubiquitous than their predecessors.

At the same time, the fact that 5G networks rely more on software that can be easily updated makes it harder to keep track of cyber threats.

German network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica Deutschland would be required to identify and apply enhanced security standards to critical network elements, the Handelsblatt daily reported earlier.

More broadly, vendors should be certified as trustworthy, giving customers legal recourse to exclude them and seek damages if proof is found that equipment had been used for spying or sabotage.(SD-Agencies)