Though Huawei has tried to cast these complaints, detailed in a series of emails obtained by Bloomberg, as innocuous glitches, but Vodafone's acknowledgement of these concerns appears to support Washington's warnings that Huawei equipment represents an international security risk - though the European Council and most individual states have done little to prevent Huawei equipment from being used in the Continent's 5G wireless networks.

The vulnerabilities identified by Vodafone could grant Huawei access to the 'fixed-line network' in Italy, the system that provides Internet service to millions of homes and businesses, potentially exposing a large swath of the Italian population to spying by the Chinese.