William Gallo of voanews.com writes:

Analysts say this week's U.S. congressional report that called two Chinese telecoms a threat to national security is likely to prompt China to retaliate against U.S. businesses.

The House Intelligence Committee report warned U.S. companies against doing business with China's largest phone equipment companies, Huawei and ZTE.

Huawei and ZTE, two of the largest telecommunications companies based in China, shouldn’t be trusted by government departments in the USA. That’s the warning from a US House of Representatives select committee report published yesterday.

It said the companies “failed to provide evidence that would satisfy any fair and full investigation. Although this alone does not prove wrongdoing, it factors into the Committee’s conclusions”. It concluded that US national security could be undermined if Huawei or ZTE provided equipment to the country’s critical infrastructure.

International figures from ABI Research show that 4G data currently costs around 20% more than the equivalent 3G tariff.

However, the research company says there are signs that competition is already causing 4G tariffs to fall.

It’s reported that Acer has cancelled the launch of a new smartphone in China running the Aliyun cloud-based mobile operating system. Aliyun, which had been developed by the Alibaba Group, is already available on a number of devices from other manufacturers.

Alibaba is quoted as saying Google had told Acer it would terminate its Android-based cooperation and technology licensing if the launch went ahead.

US-based China Labor Watch has released an investigative report into HEG Electronics (Huizhou), which produces mobile phones and audio-visual equipment for Samsung.

It carried out three investigations during June and July 2012, noting that child labour appears to be a common practice in the factory. Seven children under the age of 16 were discovered working in one department, according to the report.