Telecom operators in the UK have warned Members of Parliament that banning Huawei could potentially lead to phones not working for days. This can occur due to Huawei equipment being forcibly removed from the UK’s telecommunications infrastructure.
According to representatives from Vodafone and BT, it would take a minimum of five years before the UK government can completely remove the Chinese tech giant’s equipment without causing a major disruption in networking. For those unaware, Huawei had initially been granted the role of providing equipment for 5G networking in the region, albeit with limitations. However, opposition and fears of possible security risk have asked for complete removal of the company from the networking infrastructure.
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While Huawei had a market cap of 35 percent, but since it is a high risk vendor, it cannot be allowed to work in core areas. Furthermore, Vodafone and BT warned that companies would lose “billions of pounds” if new government sanctions completely remove Huawei equipment from their networks. They even stated that customers could lose signals in their phones for days.
According to Andrea Dona, Vodafone UK Head, “Should the guidance become stricter it will have an effect, it will delay the rollout of our 5G, it will have cost implications and focus our investment in the removal of the existing equipment. If the current guidance were to be tightened and further restrictions were to be imposed, we would need to spend in the order of billions to change our current infrastructure.”
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(Via)
