Well-known Chinese news site NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) recently reported that British Telecom (BT), in accordance with government regulations, has started removing all Huawei equipment in its Great Britain network. All Huawei equipment will be replaced by Nokia equipment. In addition to 5G equipment, all 4G Huawei equipment will be removed as well. This BT project will remove 12,000 of its 18,000 base stations. It will take ten years and cost US$700 million. To remove all Huawei equipment across the entire British communications system, it is estimated that the cost will be US$2 billion. That will delay Britain’s 5G deployment plan by at least three years. It seems the UK finally made up its mind, thanks to the threats from the United States. This may have a big impact on the Huawei global 5G strategy. However, the bigger loss is on the British side. Without the British market, Huawei is still the largest 5G equipment vendor due to the size of the Chinese market.
Source: NetEase, May 18, 2021
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