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UK 5G network ban for Huawei brought forward

The government has said that telecoms providers must stop installing Huawei equipment in the UK's 5G mobile network from September.

Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden has claimed that he was pushing for the ‘complete removal of high-risk vendors’ from 5G networks, ahead of a new law, being unveiled on 1 December, which bans the Chinese firm from the network. Maintaining old equipment will still be allowed.

Attempts to rid Huawei from the network have been ongoing for more than a year, but the new Telecommunications Security Bill is the first step in enshrining such bans in law, and offers details of exactly how it will work - if it is passed by Parliament.

The legislation will give government national security powers, allowing them to give instructions to big telecoms companies about how they use so-called ‘high-risk’ vendors like Huawei, if at all. It also threatens telecoms firms with hefty fines if they fail to comply with the new, higher security standards, which could total 10 per cent of turnover or more than £100,000 per day.

Under the new strategy, the government will spend an initial £250 million which will involve setting up a National Telecoms Lab research facility as well as investing in open radio technology - something that Dowden said will ‘spark a wave of innovation in the design of our future mobile networks’.

In July, the government ordered the complete removal of the company's kit from the entire 5G network by 2027, amid pressure from the US. The UK had initially decided that Huawei equipment should be removed from the sensitive part of the ‘core’ network, and only make up a maximum of 35 per cent of the non-core systems. The deadline was set to be 2023.