BT claims losing £500 million after Huawei UK ban

Huawei ban in the UK left major economic loss for telecom operators. Recently, BT chief security and networks officer, Howard Watson said that the company has lost £500 million (approximately $612 million) in the Huawei equipment replacement procedure in the UK.

The BT chief also expressed that instead of building more of the network infrastructure, the entire development around 5G has been scaled back. Thus, greatly affecting the current progress in the industry.

In 2019, the US imposed wide restrictions on Huawei network gear. The US also pursued partner countries to ban the Chinese equipment maker from 5G developments.

UK is one of those markets, where Huawei has been sanctioned based on the allegations of espionage made by the US. However, Huawei denied any allegation against it.

The UK government announced that all Huawei equipment from the 5G core network must be removed by January 28, 2023. This deadline was later revised to December 31, 2023.

On the other hand, Britain wants telecoms to rip and replace Huawei entirely from 5G infrastructure by the end of 2027. That’s not it, Each service provider must also limit Huawei to 35% or below in the fiber network connection until October 31, 2023.

Challenge for Operators:

Meanwhile, telecom operators have their own challenges to replace the existing 5G network gear. This includes time and more importantly – money.

Adrea Dona, CEO of Vodafone said that the ban and the replacement procedure have put an additional burden on “an already constrained capital prioritization process.”

Mr. Dona expressed that telecoms aren’t getting any additional funds to support such rip-and-replace actions.

“The net effect of the Huawei high-risk vendor swap legislation means we’ve had to scale back 5G,” said Dona.

Meanwhile, BT is getting closer to replacing Huawei with another equipment maker with about 90% of the data now circling through Ericsson.

But losing £500 million in replacing an existing network provider such as Huawei would be a big loss for BT CEO, rather than the UK government.

(source – Techradar)