5G Action Praises Reports UK May Scrub Huawei After All

5G Action is rooting for reports that a hard line may be forming in the UK against allowing Huawei as part of its 5G network. 

Back in January, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government signaled that while Chinese telecom Huawei remains a high-risk vendor (HRV) whose technology should be restricted to use outside the core of the country's communications networks, it would not exclude it entirely from its 5G network buildouts, though its presence would be limited there to 35% of nonsensitive parts of a network.  

The Trump Administration had advised the country to ban Huawei from its 5G network as a security risk and warned that if not, the U.S. would have trouble sharing data across that network.  

Mike Rogers, chairman of 5G Action and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, reacted to the reports of a potential change in direction. 

“As legislators and parliamentarians begin to understand the risks of allowing a Chinese Communist Party-backed company, Huawei, ZTE, or otherwise, onto critical national infrastructure, I expect to see greater push back and opposition. The costs of accepting Huawei into any part of the network–core or otherwise—are simply too high," he said. 

ZTE is another Chinese telecom, along with Huawei, that the FCC has tentatively concluded are security risks whose technology is not eligible for broadband subsidy money.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.