Three UK is the most recent operator to voice concern that banning Huawei gear will postpone its 5G rollout.
David Dyson, CEO of Three UK, cautioned that such a ban could postpone the rollout of 5G providers up to 18 months.
“We have already begun to deploy gear for when we start 5G at the next half of this year,” he explained. “If we needed to alter vendor today, we’d have a significant step backward and likely bring about a delay of 12 to 18 months”
The UK is under pressure in the US to prohibit Chinese 5G gear citing fears it may be used for surveillance. Huawei has been deny that it poses a national security threat.
“Huawei fulfilled each the criteria the other operators fulfilled, and we believed in the conclusion of the procedure that Huawei was the ideal option for our clients and for our organization,” Dyson said.
In preceding production networks, the UK has enabled the use of their Chinese vendor’s gear provided that it had been assessed before use in the Huawei Cyber Security Assessment Centre (HCSEC) at Banbury.
HCSEC problems annual reports of its findings. Until its most recent report, HCSEC was convinced that risks were being mitigated. The latest version emphasized concerns about Huawei’s production procedure.
Vodafone UK also expressed concerns regarding possible flaws to the 5G network earlier this month when a Huawei ban went forward. The operator’s CTO, Scott Petty, stated that such a ban could require draining equipment out of the current 4G network.
This heritage problem of utilizing Huawei gear in Europe was emphasized by Randall Stephenson, the chief executive of AT&T at the united states.
“If you’ve deployed Huawei as your own 4G system, Huawei isn’t letting interoperability to 5G — meaning if you’re 4G, then you’re stuck using Huawei for 5G,” commented Stephenson in a speech in Washington.
“If the Europeans say we have a problem — that is their problem. They truly don’t have an choice to visit someone else.”
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