The UK government is talking to new telecoms infrastructure suppliers like NEC and Samsung about stepping into the hole which will be left when Huawei switchgear is stripped out of the UK network.

Ericsson is already being used by BT while BT’s mobile subsidiary O2 has already got contracts with Nokia.

Using equipment manufactured to the O-RAN open standards specifications allowing multiple vendors to make inter-operating parts of the network is being seen as another way to overcome the limitations of only having three suppliers – Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson – capable of supplying a complete network.

Having more companies supplying parts of the network is seen as the solution. BT and Vodafone are backing O-RAN.

BT is committed to stripping out the Huawei switchgear in the core of the BT network by 2023. Huawei cannot currently be used in the UK core network And the government is considering banning it from the non-core network which has precipitated a msjor lobbying effort by Huawei-friendly interests.

Even the chairman of HSBC, Mark Tucker, is reported to have lobbied No.10 on behalf of Huawei. HSBC recently put out a statement supporting the China government’s proposed new law imposing authoritarian government on Hong Kong.

Germany’s three major networks are also stripping out Huawei gear from their network cores.

The core is where voice and  data are routed to their destinations across sub-networks and servers, the non-core comprises the antennas and base stations which provide mobile devices with radio access to the core.

Telefonica Deutschland is going to go with Ericsson.

Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. have decided to ban and phase out Huawei products within thei mobile networks.

The government has proposed to Washington a plan to form a D10 group of ten democracies comprising the G7 plus India, Korea and Australia – to create alternative sources of supply of 5G and other goods.