The mobile operators EE and Vodafone have dropped Huawei phones from their 5G launch plans, as the backlash in the UK against the Chinese company gathers pace.
Huawei was then dealt a further blow on Wednesday when the British chip designer ARM said it would stop licensing its silicon chip technology to the company.
EE said it had dropped Huawei phones from its 5G launch plans as the operator announced it would be the first next-generation mobile network available in the UK, going live in six cities on 30 May.
Britain’s largest mobile phone network said it would switch on 5G initially in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham and Manchester.
By the end of the year, 5G would be expanded to 16 cities including Nottingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Hull, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow, it said. EE added that the network would grow to 50 towns and cities in 2020.
EE said it took the decision to pull Huawei 5G phones after Google’s move earlier this week to comply with a US ban and stop supplying its Android operating system to the Chinese company.
Fast-growing Huawei is arguably China’s first global multinational. The Shenzhen-based company makes mobile phones, base stations and the intelligent routers that facilitate communications around the world.
But its success increasingly concerns the US, which argues Huawei is ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist party and has the capability to engage in covert surveillance where its equipment is used.
Huawei is by some distance the world’s largest supplier of telecoms equipment with an estimated 28% market share in 2019. It was also the second largest phone maker in 2019, after Samsung and ahead of Apple.
But Australia banned Huawei from 5G in 2018, with its spy agencies declaring they were worried the company could shut down power networks and other parts of its infrastructure in a diplomatic crisis.
Trump banned US companies from working with Huawei last year and has strenuously lobbied others to follow suit, venting “apoplectic fury” in a phone call to Boris Johnson after the UK agreed to allow the Chinese company into 5G.
The company had successfully targeted the UK early on. It has supplied BT since 2003 and gradually expanded to the point where it agreed to create a special unit in Banbury, known as the Cell, where the spy agency GCHQ could review and monitor its software code. Vodafone is another key customer.
Britain’s intelligence agencies said in January that any Huawei risk could be managed as long as the company was not allowed to have a monopoly. As a result, Boris Johnson concluded Huawei’s market share should be capped at 35% for forthcoming high-speed 5G networks.
In July 2020 the UK position changed, and it was announced that Huawei is to be stripped out of Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027. Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, also announced that no new Huawei 5G kit can be bought after 31 December 2020 – but said that older 2G, 3G and 4G kit can remain until it is no longer needed.
Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor
Marc Allera, the head of BT’s consumer division, said: “Until we have the information and confidence that ensures our customers will get support for the lifetime of their devices with us then we’ve got the Huawei devices on pause.”
Vodafone, which is to turn on 5G on 3 July in seven cities, later followed suit, announcing it would no longer be offering a Huawei 5G phone at launch. The company was due to start preorders on Thursday.
“We are pausing preorders for the Huawei Mate 20 X (5G) in the UK,” a spokesman said. “This is a temporary measure while uncertainty exists regarding new Huawei 5G devices. We will keep this situation under review.”
Paolo Pescatore, a telecoms analyst, said Huawei’s absence from EE’s initial offering could slow down the adoption of 5G by UK consumers.
Cambridge-based ARM, which is owned by Japan’s SoftBank and designs mobile microprocessors that power most of the world’s smartphones and tablets, said the decision to suspend business with Huawei had been taken to comply with the US banning order.
Huawei had planned to increase production of its own chips after Qualcomm and Intel stopped supplying the company.
A spokesman for the company said: “We value our close relationships with our partners, but recognise the pressure some of them are under, as a result of politically motivated decisions.
“We are confident this regrettable situation can be resolved and our priority remains to continue to deliver world-class technology and products to our customers around the world.”
BT is in the process of removing Huawei technology from core areas of its 4G network, the sensitive parts potentially susceptible to cybersecurity breaches, a continuation of the company’s policy after its £12.5bn acquisition of EE in 2015.
BT’s 5G service is being built on top of its 4G network, but the company says there is no security risk and Huawei technology will be completely removed from its core systems by 2022.
Download speeds could be up to 40 times faster than 4G. Next-generation 5G technology is forecast to underpin an internet-connected world of driverless cars, smart-home appliances, delivery drones and lightning-fast video on the go.
EE said it planned to upgrade its mobile sites to 5G at a rate of 100 a month, to have 1,500 live in the biggest towns and cities by the end of 2019.
However, there are currently few smartphone devices that can support 5G, so people who want to see the immediate benefit will have to buy a new device.
EE is pricing 5G as a premium product at about £5 more per month than a regular 4G plan. The cheapest 5G plan starts at £54 a month, with a 5G handset priced from £150.
