As expected, the UK government has laid out how it will mandate the UK’s telecoms operators to uninstall essential technology from so-called high-risk vendors such as Huawei from their 5G infrastructures, and has revealed the new partners and strategy for how it will try to diversify the country’s telecoms supply chain and ensure its future resilience.
In the second parliamentary reading of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, the UK’s digital secretary, Oliver Dowden, has decreed that operators must stop installing any Huawei equipment in 5G networks from the end of September 2021.
First introduced on 24 November, the bill will give the UK government unprecedented new powers to, in its words, boost the security standards of the UK’s telecoms networks and remove the threat of high-risk suppliers, principally Huawei. It also sets out to strengthen the security framework for technology used in 5G and full-fibre networks, including the electronic