UK Approves Huawei 5G Equipment with Restrictions

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The long-awaited UK government decision paves way for Huawei equipment in the country’s 5G networks. It limits it to non-critical parts of the network, while limiting how much equipment can be used.

eetimes.eu, Jan. 29, 2020 – 

Keen not to halt the progress of its 5G rollout, the U.K. government Tuesday concluded its telecoms supply chain review and issued guidance on how to treat 'high-risk vendors' (HRVs) such as Huawei as part of a new set of telecoms security requirements. It said these vendors should be excluded from sensitive 'core' parts of 5G and gigabit-capable networks.

Moreover, the U.K. government, for the first time, is placing a 35 percent hard cap on the network traffic volume passing through high-risk vendors' equipment. Similarly, base station sites served by equipment from a high-risk vendor should be limited to 35 percent at most.

Following a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) chaired by U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, digital secretary Baroness Morgan said, "We want world-class connectivity as soon as possible but this must not be at the expense of our national security. High risk vendors never have been and never will be in our most sensitive networks. The government has reviewed the supply chain for telecoms networks and concluded today it is necessary to have tight restrictions on the presence of high risk vendors." This, she said, would pave the way for secure and resilient networks, with the country's sovereignty over data protected, while also building on its strategy to develop a diversity of suppliers.

The U.K.'s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) had carried out a detailed technical and security analysis on what is needed to protect the U.K.'s digital infrastructure, and as a result set out the practical steps operators must take to implement the government's decision on how to best mitigate the risks of high risk vendors in 5G and gigabit-capable networks.

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