The move is happening a lot sooner than expected and has been formally announced today via the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. In the government notices it is stated that public communications providers must not use Huawei equipment in their 5G networks. The government documents also state that this is an issue of national security. It is also stated that the Chinese state will be carrying out cyber-attacks towards the United Kingdom.
Controlling And Stopping The Presence of Huawei
With these decisions in digital legislation, the UK will be able to secure and control the influx of material from suppliers. Oliver Dowden, the UK’s secretary of state for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, set out this roadmap earlier. The purpose was to disable high-risk vendors before the application of the new bill. This summer the government had already stated its plans for removing Huawei from the core of UK networks. The complete removal of any part of Huawei infrastructure is to be completed by 2027. Dowden also stated that these measures are the beginning of a new telecoms infrastructure for the UK without depending on other telecoms vendors that are a national security threat.
Developments in January, March, And May Regarding Huawei
Last January, Boris Johnson had announced a restriction on Huawei’s supply to the UK’s 5g network. Specifically, this would be a limit of 35% to the non-sensitive parts of the network. The UK’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) has stated that due to low-quality engineering and invasive measures approved by Chinese law, Chinese telecommunications services are a very dangerous threat. Developments in March through May had seen an attempt by UK Parliament to eliminate Huawei equipment by 2022. These attempts in Parliament fell through. However, the United States sanctions towards Huawei in May were the spark that led to the decisions made today. Specifically, the US blocked Huawei from purchasing American-made chips and the trust has been broken since then.
What The Future Looks Like For UK Telecoms
According to Dowden, the future strategy for UK telecoms will be to increase security and remove all malicious actors. He also stated that all high-risk vendors will be completely removed from the industry. Dowden explained that the UK will not be dependent on untrustworthy vendors to protect the smoothness and security of networks in the country. The UK plans are to increase innovation in the design of future mobile networks. The government will be spending an initial £250m for a better supply market and to boost innovation for its telecoms. Within this plan is a National Telecoms Lab research facility which is planned by 2022. Additionally, there will be serious fines for anyone who does not meet the new standards in legislation. Due to the changing atmosphere, UK telecoms giant BT Group Plc will now be a lot more dependent on Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB, who have benefitted from the Huawei ban. The National Telecoms Lab will be funding potential trials with NEC Corp. Japan. Furthermore, the UK will be considering commercial incentives to help diversification and will work with countries that are in agreement.
