British telecoms giant BT Group to strip Huawei from core networks, limit 5G access
- Huawei has not been included in BT’s selection of core 5G network equipment suppliers for EE, the UK’s largest mobile carrier
- Following its acquisition of EE in 2016, BT started removing Huawei equipment from its core 3G and 4G networks
Britain’s BT Group said on Wednesday it was removing Huawei Technologies’ equipment from the core of its existing 3G and 4G mobile operations and would not use the Chinese company in central parts of the next-generation 5G network.
That followed recent moves made by New Zealand and Australia to stop telecommunications operators from using Huawei’s equipment in new 5G networks because of concerns about possible Chinese government involvement in their communications infrastructure.
Huawei, the world’s biggest telecoms network equipment supplier ahead of Ericsson and Nokia, has said Beijing has no influence over its operations.
BT said Huawei’s equipment had not been used in the core of its fixed-line network, and it was removing it from the core of the mobile networks it acquired when it bought EE, the largest mobile network operator in the UK.
It said the process was to bring the EE networks in line with the rest of its business rather than a change of policy.
“In 2016, following the acquisition of EE, we began a process to remove Huawei equipment from the core of our 3G and 4G networks, as part of network architecture principles in place since 2006,” a BT spokesman said.