(Reuters) – Britain’s BT Group Plc will remove Huawei Technologies Co’s equipment from its core 4G network within two years, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The move by BT will bring its mobile phone business in line with an internal policy to keep the Chinese company’s equipment at the edge of telecoms infrastructure, the paper said.
BT has also excluded Huawei from bidding for contracts to supply equipment for use in its core 5G network, it said.
However, BT will continue to use Huawei’s kit in what it considers to be benign parts of the network, such as equipment on masts, FT said.
The Wall Street Journal in November reported that the U.S. government was trying to persuade wireless and internet providers in allied countries to avoid telecommunications equipment from Huawei. Later, New Zealand rejected Huawei’s first 5G bid citing national security risk.
Earlier this year, Australia too banned Huawei from supplying 5G equipment, also citing security risks.
BT and Huawei were not immediately available for comments.
(This story corrects paragraph 3 to ‘core’ 5G network, from 5G network)
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
