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Vodafone says UK’s desire to lead in 5G will suffer a blow if Huawei gear is ripped out
- The British mobile network operator’s warning comes as London looks to phase Huawei equipment out of the country’s telecoms infrastructure
- Britain designated Huawei a ‘high-risk vendor’ in January, capping its 5G network roll-out involvement at 35 per cent
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Vodafone Group, the world’s second biggest mobile network operator, has warned that Britain’s desire to lead the world in 5G technology will face a big blow if it decides to remove China’s Huawei Technologies from the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.
“The UK’s leadership in 5G will be lost if mobile operators are forced to spend time and money replacing existing equipment”, Scott Petty, Vodafone UK’s chief technology officer, told Reuters in an emailed statement.
The British government should make efforts to expand 5G coverage and invest in the next stage of this technology instead of stripping out the equipment of the Chinese telecoms equipment maker, Petty said.
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“We are not tied to one supplier, but it is important to understand the extent of what is at stake here,” he said, adding Vodafone is working with Swedish telecoms gear maker Ericsson and testing equipment from new suppliers.
Vodafone’s warning was reported earlier by the Financial Times newspaper.
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