Light Reading: Deutsche Telekom boss prepares to defy EU and sticks with Huawei
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By Kate Yuan
(JW Insights) Jun 21 -- Timotheus H[gf]f6[/gf]ttges, chief of Deutsche Telekom, Germany"s biggest telco, this week indicated that he would continue to purchase Huawei 5G equipment, defying the EU requests, Light Reading reported on June 20.
"The question is "is an antenna a critical element, yes or no? Under German law, it is not perceived as a critical element. By the way, every mobile phone is an antenna as well, so you can question that in this regard, and so we are fulfilling legal requirements. If Germany decides we are banning Chinese equipment, fine, and we"ll immediately do everything to fulfill these requirements," Timotheus H[gf]f6[/gf]ttges said at a conference organized by the Federation of German Industries.
Led by Thierry Breton, the EU"s internal market commissioner, officials are aghast that so many countries and operators have ignored previous entreaties to remove Chinese equipment from their networks. Breton deemed Huawei and ZTE "high-risk vendors."
The German incumbent has continued to buy 5G equipment from Huawei for a network that covered about 95% of the German population at the end of last year, according to Deutsche Telekom"s most recent annual report, comprising more than 80,000 antennas at around 24,000 sites. Strand Consult, a Danish company, reckons Huawei accounts for about 59% of the installed 5G equipment, and there has been no repudiation of that estimate, said the Light Reading report.
Deutsche Telekom"s resistance at this advanced stage of 5G deployment is not a big surprise. Separate research carried out by Barclays and obtained by Light Reading puts the cost of a "swap-out" at about [gf]20ac[/gf]1.1 billion ($1.2 billion). A quick removal of Huawei could prove to be costly and disruptive.
It could also meet with a Chinese backlash, as H[gf]f6[/gf]ttges has evidently recognized. China counts as one of Germany"s biggest trade partners and has been an enthusiastic buyer of German cars and machine tools for years. An April statement issued by Germany"s foreign ministry put the volume of trade with China at nearly [gf]20ac[/gf]300 billion ($328 billion) in 2022, according to the Light Reading report.
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