BT announced on Wednesday it is set to remove Huwei hardware from its core 4G network.
This comes amid concerns raised by various governments over the security of the Chinese company’s equipment.
A report conducted by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that the Chinese government could be involved in forcing Chinese firms such as Huawei to adapt products that are performing below expectations, in turn potentially facilitating overseas espionage activities.
Thus far, the US, New Zealand and Australia have all put into motion efforts to stop the use of Huawei equipment in national telecoms infrastructure.
The British telecommunications company has been using Huawei equipment since 2005, when it signed a deal with the Chinese firm.
A BT spokesperson said the company is in the process of removing Huawei products “from the core of our 3G and 4G networks as part of our network architecture principles in place since 2006”.
However, Huawei said that British Telecom would still be collaborating with the firm to develop elements of its 5G.
A spokesperson for the Chinese firm said: “Huawei has been working with BT for almost 15 years,” the spokesman said. “Since the beginning of this partnership, BT has operated on a principle of different vendors for different network layers. This agreement remains in place today.”
Shares in the company (LON:BT.A) are currently down -0.17% as of 14:34PM (GMT).
