Vodafone UK warns of dire consequences if forced to swap out Huawei kit

As the UK government comes under increased pressure to ban Huawei from its 5G networks, Vodafone has once more urged it to think of the operators.

In an interview with the FT, Vodafone UK CTO Scott Petty said “The UK’s leadership in 5G will be lost if mobile operators are forced to spend time and money replacing existing equipment.” While it’s a point well made, it’s not immediately obvious which aspect of the 5G world we are preeminent in.

Petty juxtaposed the stripping out of Huawei kit with developing the UK 5G industry, implying the two are mutually exclusive, and made further portentous comments about what’s at stake. There can be no doubt that being forced to rip and replace telecoms gear would be expensive and disruptive to UK operators, but by painting such a binary picture and inferring Vodafone will struggle to cope without Huawei, it seems unlikely that Petty has done his cause any favours with these comments.

They come on a day in which the US government put further pressure on the UK to pick a team in its fight with China. On top of that, Reuters reports that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg decided to poke his nose into UK business by urging it to review the Huawei situation. Stoltenberg either didn’t know that one is already underway, or decided to try to justify his salary by making a completely redundant statement. Either way it was a bit of a waste of time.

A subsequent request for reaction from the Chinese foreign ministry elicited the wonderfully characteristic request that NATO should hold the correct opinion about China, which is that it doesn’t pose a threat to any country. Whether the residents of Hong Kong would share that view is another matter, but maybe they’re incorrect too.