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The UK incumbent BT is rushing to remove Huawei equipment by the end of the year to avoid fines from the government, according to reports from The Telegraph
With just nine days until the deadline, BT still needs to switch millions of customers over to another supplier. BT has already been granted an 11-month deadline by the government, which was originally set at January 2023.
In 2020, the UK government introduced sanctions on Huawei, banning the company from critical elements of the UK telecommunications infrastructure, and ordered that all of the country’s mobile operators remove all Huawei equipment from their 5G networks by the end 2027. Earlier this year, BT met a deadline to lower the amount Huawei technology in its radio access network.
Being a major supplier of equipment for a decade, this is no small task. BT have said that replacing its full-fibre and 5G networks, for which they relied on Huawei heavily, would cost around £500 million. The replacement kit is to be produced by Ericsson.
Companies that miss the deadline could be fined up to 10% of their revenue, or £100,000 for every day that passes the deadline by the government. As BT generated a revenue of £20.7 billion (in the year up to March 2023), the company’s fine could reach up to £2 billion.
“We’ve met our initial targets – both our radio access network (RAN) traffic levels and sites were below the levels required by the Government for its July 2023 deadline. Our focus is now on work in the core for the Government’s deadline,” said a spokesperson for BT.
UK communications regulator Ofcom is set to report on the progress of the deadline early next year.
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