The British government has announced that China’s Huawei now has until 31 December 2023 to remove Huawei 5G devices and services from network cores that process some of the most sensitive data.
The government had ordered this on 28 January 2023, but after consultation with the company and the telecommunications operators extended the deadline.
The U.K. initially banned Huawei and other providers it deemed a high security risk to its 5G networks in 2020 because Huawei posed potential security risks to the United Kingdom.
Beyond the ban, the United Kingdom enshrined it in a law known as the Telecom Security Act, which ensures that telecoms customers can have confidence in the resilience of the everyday services they rely on. Britain also required operators such as BT, Vodafone and Hutchison to switch to alternative providers and ultimately remove Huawei devices from their networks.
The government said the deadline for removing all Huawei equipment from Britain’s 5G networks by the end of 2027 had not changed and it has issued legal notices to 35 U.K. telecoms network operators to officially enforce the move.
Meanwhile, the deadline for companies to reduce the share of Huawei equipment in their non-core networks to 35% has been pushed back from July 31 to October 31, 2023.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.