UK bans Huawei from its 5G networks

NewsBharati    15-Jul-2020 11:34:20 AM
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London, July 15: Following the footsteps of the United States, Britain banned Chinese technology giant Huawei from the country’s high-speed wireless network due to security reasons. The government asked its mobile providers to remove all of Huawei’s 5G kit from their networks by 2027.
 
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"This has not been an easy decision, but it is the right one for the UK telecoms networks, for our national security and our economy, both now and indeed in the long run," Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said.
 
Dowden stated that the UK is understood to have argued that Huawei created too much risk for such a critical, multibillion-dollar project that it has decided to bar the purchase of new Huawei equipment for 5G networks after December. The government also would remove all of the company's existing infrastructure by 2027.
 
Further, he added that from the end of this year telecoms operators must not buy any equipment from Huawei, and after the telecoms bill, it will be illegal to do so. “By the time of the next election we will have implemented in law an irreversible path for the complete removal of Huawei equipment from our 5G networks,” Dowden said in a statement to the House of Commons.
 
 
Dowden also asserted that the decision attempts to balance technology, geopolitics, and the practical impact on consumers. Dowden conceded that banning Huawei would delay the U.K.'s 5G rollout by two years and cost up to 2 billion pounds, around $2.5 billion. The decision was taken at a meeting of the UK's National Security Council (NSC) chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in response to new US sanctions against the telecom major imposed in May which removed the firm's access to products which have been built based on US semiconductor technology.
 
Hours after the UK announced the ban, Huawei urged the government to reconsider the ban, saying Washington ha pressurizes the UK government for the decision. Chinese tech giant Huawei said Tuesday that the British government's move to ban the company's involvement in the country's 5G networks is a "disappointing decision" which "threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide.
 
Earlier, the US government accused Huawei of saying the giant is a security risk because the company could be used by the Chinese government to spy on the West. Both China and Huawei have repeatedly denied this.
 
On the other hand, US President Donald Trump welcomed the decision and said that he has convinced many countries not to use Huawei-produced equipment because of its security risk. The United States had also banned Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE Corp saying it they can be national security threats as they have close ties with the Chinese Communist Party and China's military apparatus. United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his happiness over the decision.