A new report by GSMA argues that the Huawei ban means European nations will have to pay extra $62 billion for their 5G infrastructure, as well as needing to wait an additional year and a half.
Representing some 750 mobile operators, the GSMA report says that Huawei and its peer ZTE have a combined market share of more than 40 per cent in the EU.
“Half of this (additional cost) would be due to European operators being impacted by higher input costs following significant loss of competition in the mobile equipment market,” the report said. “Additionally, operators would need to replace existing infrastructure before implementing 5G upgrades.”
“Such a delay would widen the gap in 5G penetration between the EU and the U.S. by more than 15 percentage points by 2025,” according to the report.
However, not everyone agrees with this statement. Finnish telecoms gear manufacturer Nokia begs to differ.
“We offer a technical solution whereby we can overlay our 5G equipment on top of another vendor’s 4G gear. This solution could reduce the cost and complexity of vendor changes,” spokesman Eric Mangan said.
The US recently blacklisted Huawei, citing matters of national security. Many of US' greatest tech companies, such as Google, cut ties with the Chinese. In the lastest news, it was said that upcoming Huawei phones will not come preloaded with Facebook, WhatsApp or Snapchat apps.
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