BT Group to complete Huawei equipment removal by end of March

BT Group has missed the deadline for the Huawei equipment removal from its core network, but it looks like the task will be completed by the end of March this year. The company’s executive has shared some new details on this subject.

As per the BT Group chief security and networks officer – Howard Watson, the telecom company is in the final stage of removing Huawei equipment from its core and will finish it up by the next two months, probably, in March end.

So far, BT Group has separated 99 percent of Huawei’s network techs from its business. However, some of the work is still in process and will take a few weeks to complete. This includes the replacement of a Huawei function from its alternative named Online Charging System (OCS).

Notably, the powerful Huawei equipment didn’t contribute to the traffic but helped in managing the 4G and 5G customer data bundles. After the removal of Huawei equipment, the UK telecom regular Ofcom and National Cyber Security Centre will review the situation of Huawei’s presence in the technology.

“…we are confident, from the conversations we’ve had, that they are impressed with the amazing progress we’ve made, which involved the migration of 30 million customers from the Huawei core platform to one mainly supplied by Ericsson, and that has been pretty flawless from a customer experience perspective.” – said Watson.

BT Group: Penalties

The UK authorities offered a deadline of December 31, 2023. Although the BT Group missed it due to finding a replacement, major changes, and implementing things from scratch. Due to the deadline missing, the BT firm even faced a large amount of financial penalties.

Regarding the network equipment procedure, another executive – Greg McCall said that the company is on track but doesn’t want to rush. The company wants to get the right level of quality and service that can help its customers use the core features of the 5G SA network.

Huawei Network Solutions:

The Chinese tech giant develops some of the effective network solutions for its telecom operators. However, the UK ban on Huawei for being a security threat and stealing users’ data kept it away from the foreign telecommunications firm.

Even though Huawei denied all the blame and allegations. Yet, the UK authorities prohibited the use of its equipment in the telecom firms. Perhaps, replacing an existing network supplier and beginning from scratch appeared as a big loss for BT company.

(Source)