BT misses deadline on Huawei equipment ban

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BT has failed to fully hit an end-of-year government deadline for removing telecoms equipment supplied by Huawei after delays in migrating its 2G and 3G services, as providers race to strip the kit from their networks due to security concerns.

UK telecom operators were required to rip out Huawei equipment from their core infrastructure — in effect, the central parts of the network — by December 31 as part of a wider ban on kit from the Chinese vendor over national security concerns.

BT has now removed almost all of the telecoms infrastructure supplied by Huawei but is yet to finish the process. Other groups have also been racing to hit the deadline, although government officials said they would be given some leeway, given the difficulties in taking out essential parts of a network while still running services.

BT told the Financial Times that 4G and 5G data and voice calls were “now delivered by non-Huawei core equipment”. This meant, it said, that more than 99 per cent “of all core traffic is now being served by non-Huawei kit”.

The FTSE 100 company is still working towards moving across its older 2G and 3G voice and data services, however, which also enable calls and internet usage over its networks.

The government in 2022 issued legal documents to operators stating that Huawei technology must be removed from 5G networks by the end of 2027 after initially announcing the ban in 2020 following US sanctions on the Chinese company.

The requirement to remove Huawei kit from the “core” network was extended to the end of last year following industry consultation. The original target date was in January 2023.

One mobile executive told the FT that it had been “a challenging and lengthy process” that had meant “close communication with government regarding our timescales”.

Huawei declined to comment. It has always denied its…