Analyst slams ‘hoax’ claim that Sky Mobile outages are linked to Huawei rip-and-replace

A recent story in the FT claimed that recent mobile outages experienced by Sky in the UK were the result of government pressure to remove Huawei from networks.

The story was headlined ‘Sky suffers mobile outages in push to strip Huawei from UK 5G networks’ and opened with the following statement: ‘The government’s drive to rip out Huawei kit from Britain’s telecoms network has led to mobile outages for customers of Sky, in the first sign of disruption long warned about by industry executives.’

It goes on to explain that UK mobile operators have been given a deadline for the end of this year to completely remove Huawei equipment from their 5G core networks. The original deadline was 28 January of this year but was extended at the apparent request of UK operators. While Sky is an MVNO that uses the O2 radio network, it does operate its own core, which grants it more power to differentiate and personalise its mobile offering.

In emailed comments sent to Telecoms.com and its sister publication Light Reading, telecoms Analyst John Strand questioned the principle claim of the story. “When I look at the article from FT, things don’t fit together if you just have a little insight into what’s happening in the European telecommunications market,” wrote Strand.

“Seen from my chair, it looks like a hoax. The story has probably been produced to add pressure on UK gov to extend the deadline. The last issues in the mobile network (months ago) were, according to my sources, not related Huawei s product nor Europeans products.” In its coverage of the FT story the Register identified reports of Sky Mobile outages in May and June of this year, but culpability for the latter seems to have been O2’s, not Sky’s.

In his communication Strand went on to note many other instances of operators around the world ripping-and-replacing Huawei from their core networks without incident, as well as listing 15 European countries that have a ban on Huawei in the RAN. That, of course, doesn’t prove the FT assertion is false, but it does suggest it’s exceptional, rather than the inevitable consequence of the compelled rip-and-replace programme.

The source of the FT story was ‘two people familiar with the situation’ who were not identified. Strand’s speculation about the motives of the mystery sources seems plausible. Of the big four UK MNOs only BT/EE is affected by the core deadline of the end of this year, while Huawei was presumably pleased to see reports that the programme is causing problems.

We contacted Sky for comment on the FT story and, while its spokesperson declined to address it specifically, they reiterated the statement Sky gave to the FT. “Sky is fully complying with government requirements on our mobile network, whilst making every effort to ensure we limit any potential impact on customers,” said the spokesperson.

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