BT is close to completing the recall of Huawei equipment

BT, the current UK operator, has revealed that it will be in the final stage of completing the removal of Huawei equipment, thus complying with the government mandate about three months after the deadline.

Howard Watson, General Manager of Security and Networks at BT, explained The process of uninstalling and replacing Huawei equipment will be approximately 98.5 percentThe process is scheduled to end at the end of March of this year, according to the TelecomTV website.

Essentially, it will be necessary to complete the replacement of the platform that manages data packages for 4G and 5G customers with an alternative system called Online Charging System (OCS), developed by Amdocs.

Established by the British government January 2023 as deadline It was imposed so that suppliers in the country could finish Removing Huawei equipment from the core of its network. The date was postponed twice due to difficulties faced by operators in carrying out the uninstallation and replacement of the Chinese manufacturer. If the withdrawal deadline is not met, operators face potential fines of up to 100,000 pounds per day or 10 percent of their income.

What follows now is that the operators' networks will undergo an evaluation process by British regulators, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) and the National Cyber ​​Security Centre, to find out the level of Huawei's presence on the network.

Watson added, “From the conversations we've had, [los reguladores] “They were blown away by the incredible progress we had made” that led to this Migration of 30 million customers from Huawei's core platform to one primarily provided by Ericsson.

The UK has classified Huawei as a “high-risk supplier” and banned the purchase and establishment of new equipment Deadline 2027 to completely remove the presence of the Chinese manufacturer. It is estimated that the total cost of removing Huawei will cost British operators around $2 billion.

However, the whole process will have Significant economic impact of between £4.5 and £6.8 billionaccording to estimates by Assembly Research, derived from delays in the rollout of the national 5G network.