Telenor To Keep The Faith With Huawei On 5G

Ericsson has also been added as a new supplier to Telenor

Norway’s biggest telco, Telenor, has announced that it will continue to use Huawei kit in its 5G networks, which are scheduled to launch next year.

Huawei will be involved in the Radio Access portion of Telenor’s next generation mobile network, along with Swedish vendor Ericsson.

“Ericsson has been introduced as a new vendor for 5G RAN, but we will also work with Huawei both to maintain the 4G network and also upgrade to 5G coverage in selected areas of Norway,” Hanne Knudsen, Telenor’s vice president for communications told journalists from Reuters.

“Huawei has delivered hardware for RAN, but not for the core network. When they will build 5G in selected areas for the modernisation, this is also for RAN, not core,” she added.

Knudsen also confirmed that the company’s Finnish subsidiary, DNA, will use Huawei in its 5G networks.

European governments have been under pressure from the US to ban Huawei from their 5G rollout campaigns. The US claims that Huawei’s network equipment poses a security risk and can be more easily hacked than those of its rivals.

The US has offered no proof to support these assertions and Huawei strenuously denies them.

Despite this, the US government has been ratcheting up the pressure on its European allies to try and force the world’s biggest 5G vendor out of the European market.

The head of Telenor Norway, Petter-Boerre Furberg, told Reuters that the company would eventually look to phase out Huawei’s technology over the next 4-5 years, as the company moves towards full standalone 5G. – Total Telecom