United Kingdom draws up 3-year plan to remove Huawei from 5G networks

The United Kingdom government is drawing up plans to force a full phase out of Huawei from Britain’s 5G networks within three years. Government officials want to ensure that the UK’s telecoms networks — including 5G mobile phone infrastructure — do not contain equipment from the Chinese company beyond 2023 because they believe this could compromise national security. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Jan granted the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker a limited role in supplying kit for the UK’s 5G networks, while capping Huawei’s market share to 35 percent. The rules also banned the use of the company’s equipment in the critical core of mobile networks where data is stored and routed. In March the government only narrowly defeated a Tory rebel amendment designed to ban Huawei from UK networks completely. Now Prime Minister Johnosn has instructed officials to tighten restrictions on the involvement of the company in the new system to zero by 2023. It was reported Prime Minister Johnson always had “serious concerns” about the 5G agreement, initially brokered by his predecessor Theresa May, and now wanted it to be “significantly scaled back”. One official said that circumstances had changed in recent months: “The landscape is different and it’s right that we re-examine this immediately.”