Discontinuing the use of Huawei equipment.

There has been much in the news about removing Huawei equipment from the 5g network and how quickly this should be done. The idea of not having Huawei equipment in other parts of the Telecommunications network does sometimes get mentioned. At the moment I am using an FTTC connection to a Huawei cabinet and I am doubtful if the general use of these cabinets poses much of a national security risk.

I do wonder how much Huawei kit get used in the FTTC backhaul systems and also what impact not using Huawei kit will have on the rollout of FTTP.

I believe Huawei was banned from use in the core of networks but is still currently allowed in other parts of the network (such as cabinets). The UK government has not yet banned Huawei from all networks and even if they did it would take some time to remove all of the Huawei devices from the network.

EDIT : How quickly things change. Obviously this is now out of date given the announcement today in the news

Edited by ian72 (Tue 14-Jul-20 17:18:10)

It appears OR have 2 years to find a 2nd supplier for FTTP before being prevented from buying anymore Huawei FTTP kit. Otherwise they would have a single source Nokia. There does not appear to be any Huawei kit is the Broadband core BUT the VOIP services often use the same Huawei call control kit as the Mobile networks. ( Transmission medium is different but the rest of the service is identical).

Removing Huawei from the FTTP rollout is likely to slow down the rollout especially if the government want the existing kit to be removed ( about 80% of the existing is Huawei!).. If Huawei stop providing software updates the whole edifice comes crashing down.

Funny part is most of the alternative suppliers have their kit made in China, often using the alternate chip manufacturers that GCHQ cannot certify as secure for Huawei to use. So the USA have forced the UK to move from a chip source we can verify to one we cannot made in the same country they are paranoid about. Much less secure than we were in my opinion.

OpenReach have already signed a 3rd FTTP Vendor, ADTRAN.
They won't provide any equipment till 2021 though.

As for the use of Huawei in the FTTP rollout

Operators are being told they should "transition away" from purchasing new Huawei equipment for use in full-fibre networks, ideally within the next two years.

Sounds like some flexibility within that.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 14-Jul-20 19:24:13)