Vodafone And Orange Keep The Faith With Huawei For Spanish 5G Trials

Huawei will conduct a series of high profile 5G trials in Spain, with two of Europe’s biggest telcos.

Huawei will work with both Orange and Vodafone on a series of separate 5G initiatives in Pamplona, Andalucía, Malaga and Seville.

Orange and Vodafone have formally submitted their plans to the Spanish government via red.es, a government subsidiary responsible for facilitating the country’s digital transformation.

The news will be a welcome respite for Huawei, as international concerns about the security of its network infrastructure threaten to impact on its expansion plans in Western Europe.

Speaking exclusively to Total Telecom at an industry event in November, Huawei’s President for Western Europe, Vincent Pang said that the region was central to the company’s expansion plans in 2019.

“Western Europe is the most open and level market in which Huawei operates. It’s very open. It’s very transparent and we get a lot of very clear guidance on what it is that we are required to do,” he said.

“Local governments in Europe have been incredibly supportive of what we are trying to do. I think that is why Europe is such an important growth market for Huawei.”

Despite their ongoing support, European governments and telcos alike are facing pressure from US based lobby groups who want the US’ key allies to boycott the Chinese tech giant.

However, the latest announcements in Spain show that European telcos still have a huge appetite to work with Huawei as they look to rollout next generation mobile services across Europe.

Huawei has already signed 26 commercial contracts for 5G with leading international carriers and has shipped more than 10,000 5G base stations across the globe, making it the world’s biggest supplier of 5G network infrastructure.― Total Telecom