UK Law Penalizes Telecom Companies For Using Huawei Equipment

In Great Britain, a new law for security in telecommunications is due to come into force shortly, which threatens the country’s network operators with drastic penalties if they use 5G technology from Huawei in their cellular networks.

As the BBC reports, a new draft law is to be submitted to the British Parliament shortly, with which one wants to ensure more security in the field of telecommunications. Among other things, the law stipulates that Huawei and its subsidiaries should be excluded from expanding the UK 5G networks .

If the network operators fail to ensure that they take the desired measures to increase security in good time before the deadlines specified by the law expire, severe penalties are imminent. The planned measures also include the fact that the network operators forego Huawei hardware in their mobile networks, because this is generally classified as unsafe.

British networks should be Huawei-free by 2027

If the companies did not remove the Huawei systems from their 5G networks by 2027, they would violate the requirements of the new law. The national regulator Ofcom can then impose fines of at least 10 percent of sales or more than 100,000 British pounds per day, according to the current plans.

https://5e2f56a9dff127a4b337b75ee3acaffc.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html As in many other countries, some network operators in Great Britain rely on Huawei technology, as this enables a comparatively inexpensive build-up of 5G capacities. In the meantime, however, the providers are trying to reduce their dependence on Huawei due to political pressure and are therefore increasingly concluding supply contracts with alternative network equipment providers such as Nokia and Ericsson.

Huawei again referred to the doubts it felt about the still not really proven security concerns about the Chinese manufacturer. Although British politicians also regard Huawei’s hardware as a security risk, the company said there was still no “fair assessment of the risks”.