Vodafone has warned that any move to block use of 5G equipment from Chinese telecoms giant Huawei would cost it hundreds of millions of pounds.

Scott Petty, Vodafone’s chief technology officer, said that moves from the British government to bar Huawei’s involvement amid security concerns could “significantly” slow down the planned roll out of high speed 5G networks across the UK in the coming years. It would also require the mobile provider to strip out components from its existing 4G network.

The intervention comes as the United States ramped up pressure on its security allies to boycott use of Huawei equipment in national technology networks, after allegations that back doors could leave nation states exposed to spying by Chinese intelligence agencies.

Huawei has vigorously denied the claims and yesterday launched legal action against the US government over a new law seeking to block use of its technology.

In comments reported by Reuters, Petty said that Huawei radio equipment was in use in almost a third of the company’s 18,000 network base stations – a part of the UK’s infrastructure that the company assessed to be at very low risk from a security perspective.

“If we were forced to remove Huawei from the network, we would need to go to the 32 per cent of base stations that are currently using Huawei for radio and replace all of those with somebody else’s technology and then deploy 5G on top of that.

“The cost of doing that runs into the hundreds of millions and would dramatically affect our 5G business case; we would have to slow down the deployment of 5G very significantly,” he said.

Vodafone is trialling high speed 5G networks in seven cities in the UK as part of a UK-wide trial. The company is planning to roll the technology out to 12 more towns and cities by the end of 2019.

Last month Vodafone announced it would temporarily pause use of Huawei components in its core networks with Huawei across Europe while governments, including the UK, reached firm conclusions on the potential security risks of such hardware.

Petty explained that telecoms providers using Huawei’s radio technology on masts was relatively low risk, while Vodafone had decided five years ago that it would not use Huawei equipment in its critical transport network and core networks, which were deemed to be more sensitive.

Vodafone is using US company Cisco’s technology for its core 5G network along with equipment from Swedish firm Ericsson.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre supply chain review is due to release the findings of its research into Huawei’s technology in the coming months. The UK has yet to provide evidence of security interference or risks posed by Huawei.

Last month, the head of the UK Government’s Communications Headquarters said the wider challenge of China’s emerging dominance as a global technology provider is much greater than Huawei’s involvement in 5G telecoms networks.

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