70,000 Sky Mobile customers disrupted as firm strips out Huawei
Service outages have been experienced by mobile users across the country
More than 70,000 mobile users in the UK have reportedly experienced a service outage following the removal of Huawei equipment by telecoms giant Sky, as reported by the Financial Times.
While many have had their services restored, the broader telecoms industry has warned of continued disruptions as they replace Huawei's widely deployed 5G infrastructure.
Government ministers have instructed mobile providers to expunge Huawei equipment from their "core" 5G networks by the end of this year due to ongoing national security concerns surrounding Chinese-made technology. The deadline had previously been extended by a year in 2022, the government citing the risk of network disruption and its potential impact on consumers, despite heightened national security worries.
Sky outages
Recent outages affecting Sky Mobile users have been linked to the removal of Huawei components from the network infrastructure, according to sources familiar with the situation.
It's worth noting, however, that other factors may also be contributing to these disruptions. While Sky relies on the O2 network infrastructure, it provides its own equipment for delivering mobile services.
In 2020, Philip Jansen, CEO of BT, cautioned about potential outages if equipment removal from the 5G network progressed too hastily. He suggested that the industry might require at least five to seven years to fully eliminate Chinese infrastructure. The removal of Huawei from both mobile and broadband networks was projected to cost £500 million over five years.
Government's Huawei directive
The government's directive mandates the removal of Huawei from "core" network functions by December 2023. The government has cited "severe national security risk" as the rationale for this move, but Huawei has consistently denied that its technology poses such a threat.
The order affects 35 mobile operators and networks, with telecoms executives acknowledging the immense challenge and cost associated with extracting high-risk vendors from the infrastructure. Unlike some other countries, the UK does not offer government subsidies to support this work.
In a statement when the edict was announced in 2020 Former Digital Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said: "5G will be transformative for our country, but only if we have confidence in the security and resilience of the infrastructure it is built upon.
"Following US sanctions against Huawei and updated technical advice from our cyber experts, the government has decided it is necessary to ban Huawei from our 5G networks. This decisive move provides the industry with the clarity and certainty it needs to get on with delivering 5G across the UK."
Earlier this year, Sky Mobile customers expressed frustration on social media when their mobile internet services ceased to function, with some experiencing a complete loss of mobile signal. While these issues were linked to the "migration" of Huawei equipment by some sources, there is no definitive confirmation that it was the sole or primary cause of the outages at that time.