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Author Topic: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?  (Read 3146 times)

dorzb

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Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« on: January 30, 2020, 11:36:36 AM »

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/30/huawei-ruling-will-cost-us-500m-says-bt

Huawei ruling will cost us £500m, says BT
Telecoms group faces big bill for stripping out banned kit from 5G broadband network

Limiting the use of Huawei equipment in BT’s EE 5G mobile and full-fibre broadband networks will cost the telecoms group £500m over the next five years.

BT uses more Huawei equipment in the masts and towers of its mobile network than is allowed under new government rules, meaning it will now have to be stripped out and replaced with hardware from other manufacturers.

Earlier this week, the government said it would allow Huawei to be involved in the non-core parts of the UK’s 5G network, the masts and towers, but with a 35% cap on use of the Chinese company’s equipment. Huawei equipment is banned from use in the core of 5G mobile networks, where data is processed, and from locations such as nuclear sites and military bases.

The same 35% cap applies to the gigabit-speed full-fibre broadband infrastructure, which is less problematic as the slow rollout to date means it has reached only 10% of UK homes.

 Johnson won’t say so, but the real decision about Huawei was made years ago

BT shares fell 5% as investors digested the financial cost of stripping out Huawei, as well as softer-than-expected third quarter results from the telecoms company.

The company reported a 3% drop in revenue to £5.77bn in the three months to the end of December, as profits fell 4% to £1.97bn.

“The way it works at the moment is when you put a 5G box on a mast it has to be on top of a 4G box from the same supplier,” said Philip Jansen, the chief executive of BT. “More than 35% of [our] 4G boxes are Huawei. We are going to have to take out some Huawei 4G boxes and not use them again. That is probably the single biggest cost. In order to make 5G work we are going to have to use other manufacturers’ equipment.”

Jansen hinted that the total cost could end up more than £500m as the 35% cap also applied to how much 5G data traffic was allowed to flow through Huawei equipment, not just the proportion of equipment. This could require additional replacement of Huawei equipment where it is being used in highly populated, high-traffic areas such as London and Manchester.

“It is an estimate, but we are pretty comfortable,” said Jansen. “[The cap] is not just number of masts, it is traffic as well. The mechanism for defining traffic has not [yet] been agreed.”


BT-owned Openreach is rolling out full-fibre broadband across the UK with a target of reaching 4m homes by 2021. Jansen said meeting the 35% Huawei cap in the broadband network would not be a problem.

Boris Johnson is aiming to get gigabit speed broadband to every UK home by 2025. Jansen said that target might not be achieved unless issues such as the cost of supplying broadband to remote areas could be resolved.

“It is possible, it is just very, very hard and we don’t have time to waste”, he said. “My sadness is I don’t think these things will get resolved quickly and it may get missed. We cannot allow bureaucracy to get in the way of progress. We need full fibre, not red tape.”
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niemand

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2020, 12:06:47 PM »

No. Applies to FTTP only. Nokia kit will take the slack alongside any other vendor they bring onboard.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2020, 08:00:06 PM »

I honestly don't get these arbitrary numbers, how is is okay in the governments eyes for Huawei to potentially turn off/snoop traffic on 35% of the network?

Its either a risk, or its not, setting some random figure seems insane.

Also, I'm no fan of capitalism, but if the government are shifting goal posts like this shouldn't THEY pay for any equipment Openreach have to retire due to this new ruling?
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PhilipD

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2020, 02:01:11 PM »

Hi

I honestly don't get these arbitrary numbers, how is is okay in the governments eyes for Huawei to potentially turn off/snoop traffic on 35% of the network?

Its either a risk, or its not, setting some random figure seems insane.

Also, I'm no fan of capitalism, but if the government are shifting goal posts like this shouldn't THEY pay for any equipment Openreach have to retire due to this new ruling?

It is simply mitigation of risk.

I don't think the main concern is snooping on traffic anyway, typically there are several layers of encryption and obfuscation of our data as it travels around it simply isn't easy to do, for example this message to you is encrypted between me and Kitz servers, good luck on anyone intercepting this en-route.  I also think someone would notice if Huawei FTTC cabinets or their other kit were sending data back to China, it would be seen, and don't worry, they will be testing the kit and monitoring it watching all traffic forensically, and if there was any real evidence of data being sent on to China, we'd know about it already from the US.  The big concern is a kill switch hidden in the firmware which we can't see or check for, so that China in the event of some dispute or war, could just remotely turn-off all Huawei kit bringing chaos.  If we are worried about Huawei kit then really any gagdet from China we should be suspicious off, and that's virtually all of them!

So by only using Huawei kit on the network edge, if that is turned off remotely, then the majority of kit and internet connections carry on as normal.

Regards

Phil
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2020, 04:09:45 PM »

Hi

So by only using Huawei kit on the network edge, if that is turned off remotely, then the majority of kit and internet connections carry on as normal.

Regards

Phil

That's the thing though, while yes it protects the core network so government, banks, emergency services can continue to run - it could still be pretty horrific for end users who suddenly have their VoIP or cell tower cut off.  The actual placement would have be monitored carefully so it doesn't put specific areas at more risk than other, have fallbacks to other vendors.

Plus if they have such a vested interest in being able to shut down infrastructure, you'd have to assume they are also looking into vulnerabilities in other vendors too so before they shut down their own kit they send out exploits to take down other parts of the network.

« Last Edit: January 31, 2020, 05:07:31 PM by Alex Atkin UK »
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PhilipD

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2020, 04:57:16 PM »

That's the thing though, while yes it protects the core network so government, banks, emergency services can continue to run - it could still be pretty horrific for end users who suddenly have their VoIP or cell tower cut off.

I would think if things have broken down to such an extent that China dares send a shutdown request (if they can indeed do that which is unlikely) to all Huawei equipment, the last thing on peoples mind will be their Internet connection!

Regards

Phil
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2020, 05:10:31 PM »

I would think if things have broken down to such an extent that China dares send a shutdown request (if they can indeed do that which is unlikely) to all Huawei equipment, the last thing on peoples mind will be their Internet connection!

Regards

Phil

Were not talking about downloading the latest PS4 game here though, were talking about cutting off all methods of communication as the analog phone system will soon no longer exist.
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j0hn

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2020, 06:02:41 PM »

No idea why Huawei/China get singled out though.

Cos "The West" says so? Cos Trump says so?

I've always been happy knowing my DSLAM and its OLT were Huawei.
With a previous ISP my modem and Youview box were also Huawei.
I used the HG612 for years happily.
I'm on my 3rd Huawei phone, that I'm typing on right now.

I trust Huawei from China about as much as I trust ECI from Israel.
Huawei at least make decent telecoms kit.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2020, 10:12:42 PM »

Indeed, to me the issue is ALL our telecoms kit is from countries that potentially could have a beef with us at some point.
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Weaver

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2020, 11:30:30 PM »

Why doesn’t the government just buy the source code from Huawei and build it themselves? That way they could inspect it. I’m probably being too naive. I recall various governments getting source code to WinNT o/s family from Microsoft.
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j0hn

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2020, 01:07:48 AM »

GCHQ already run extensive tests on Huawei kit.

It's proprietary technology that Huawei have spent Billions on in R&D.
The last time I checked the government didn't make telecoms kit.
Huawei wouldn't be keen on allowing some random company making these on behalf of the government.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2020, 02:36:22 AM »

Indeed.  While they will grudgingly provide source code for consumer kit, there is little chance they would share trade secrets from their core network kit.

Its my understanding that for high-end gear, they will be using ASIC chips for speed/efficiency and that code is going to be kept utterly secret.

Its also easy to forget how even when code is released, there are usually binary firmwares within that run code which is again kept entirely secret.  Mobile, DSL, all sorts of hardware with SoC in them that are running code where all we see is the API.  There could easily be hidden functions within said API to do things we are not aware of.
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PhilipD

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2020, 07:53:03 AM »

Hi

Were not talking about downloading the latest PS4 game here though, were talking about cutting off all methods of communication as the analog phone system will soon no longer exist.

What I mean is if China could and did throw an off switch shutting down a chunk of our communication system it would be very serious and taken as an hostile act. 

Even if we shrugged it off and went "oh well", we could buy no more electronic gadgets as they are mostly from China and all trade would be halted and we would be told to stop using any Chinese electronic devices, which is what all of them. 

Still if we don't start a full blown war we would soon get used to having a patchy mobile phone signal and poor Internet connections, believe it or not there was a time we didn't have any of this 24/7 connectivity and life was perfectly fine, we actually talked to each other face to face then, in many ways it was much better.

Regards

Phil
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Weaver

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2020, 09:58:41 AM »

As for inspecting the kit, even if it is an ASIC that is involved, make it a condition of sale that it be inspected thoroughly at a source design file level by a security contractor working for the government under NDA and if Huawei want the business then they will have to submit to this, and get the bill for the inspection too. We don’t have to use anything they make at all, and if they are untrusted then they have to become trusted by whatever process is required.

An alternative would be to tell them ‘no’ and simply get a uk based supplier started up. It’s all been left a bit late, and then some. Another example of buying foreign stuff thoughtlessly, while opportunities for home based development are neglected and home industry allowed to run down. This is all showing that Chinese untrusted kit is not as cheap in TCO terms as they thought for the visible price tag. Who knew?
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 08:12:44 PM by burakkucat »
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Chrysalis

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Re: Does this mean less Huawei cabinets for us in the next 5 years?
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2020, 07:32:09 PM »

Any conditions should be imposed on every company in my opinion, no discrimination.

I do wonder what financial losses have been hitting American communication companies that made them feel the need to lead to start this nonsense.
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