The decision follows criticism for allowing the Chinese firm into 5G network infrastructure and, according to the Government, a technical review by the National Cyber Security Centre.
- Buying new Huawei 5G equipment banned after 31 December 2020
- All Huawei equipment to be removed from 5G networks by end of 2027
- Existing ban on Huawei from most sensitive ‘core’ parts of 5G network remains
Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said in a statement to the House of Commons: “By the time of the next election we will have implemented in law an irreversible path for the complete removal of Huawei equipment from our 5G networks”.
HUAWEI will be completely removed from the UK’s 5G networks by the end of 2027, the government has announced, following new advice produced by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on the impact of US sanctions against the telecommunications vendor.
Ahead of this there will be a total ban on the purchase of any new 5G kit after 31 December 2020.
“The decision was taken today in a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) chaired by the Prime Minister, in response to new US sanctions. These were imposed on Huawei in May, after the UK’s initial decision on high risk vendors, and are the first of their kind removing the firm’s access to products which have been built based on US semiconductor technology. Technical experts at the NCSC reviewed the consequences of the sanctions and concluded the company will need to do a major reconfiguration of its supply chain as it will no longer have access to the technology on which it currently relies and there are no alternatives which we have sufficient confidence in. They found the new restrictions make it impossible to continue to guarantee the security of Huawei equipment in the future.
As a result, ministers today agreed that UK operators should stop the purchase of Huawei equipment affected by the sanctions. There will be a ban on the purchase of new Huawei kit for 5G from next year and it will be completely removed from 5G networks by the end of 2027. The decision takes into account our specific national circumstances and how the risks from these sanctions are manifested in the UK.
The existing restrictions on Huawei in sensitive and critical parts of the network remain in place. The US action also affects Huawei products used in the UK’s full fibre broadband networks. However, the UK has managed Huawei’s presence in the UK’s fixed access networks since 2005 and we also need to avoid a situation where broadband operators are reliant on a single supplier for their equipment. As a result, following security advice from our world leading experts, we are advising full fibre operators to transition away from purchasing new Huawei equipment. A technical consultation will determine the transition timetable, but we expect this period to last no longer than two years.”
Earlier in the year, American Senator Tom Cotton warned the Defence Select Committee that the UK’s decision to allow Huawei to build aspects of its 5G network “raises too great a risk for us to have that advanced aircraft in any nation with this system”, he said speaking of US F-35 deployments in the UK.
The Telegraph had earlier reported that Republican senators in the US were moving to block 48 US fighter jets being deployed to Britain over Huawei concerns after an amendment was tabled that would would bar F-35 deployment to countries where Huawei builds 5G network components.
Some members of the Defence Select Committee have also expressed concerns over the UK Government including Huawei equipment in the UK 5G network, with MP for West Dunbartonshire Martin Docherty-Hughes saying “handing over your 5G network to the Communist party of any country is utter insanity”.
I’m sure many of you will remember last year when Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was sacked by then Prime Minister Theresa May over allegations of leaks from a National Security Council. According to those alleged leaks, Prime Minister Theresa May rejected the advice of senior ministers and agreed Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s ‘non-core’ 5G network.
Recently, Senator Tom Cotton discussed American objections further in a Defence Select Committee meeting on ‘The Security of 5G’ on the 2nd of June:
“Again, a lot of it goes back to signals intelligence and the sensitivity of sources and methods. Some of these things we can’t discuss in an open setting, but they are concerns that our intelligence professionals and our technical experts have raised about not just the
United Kingdom using Huawei, but any nation that uses Huawei technology.
I want to correct something that one of the Members said earlier about my legislation—that it would delay the deployment of F-35 fighters to the United Kingdom. It does not delay them specifically to the United Kingdom. It simply says that it raises too great a risk for us to have that advanced aircraft in any nation with this system. Obviously, the United
Kingdom is not the only nation that uses Huawei. We will have to face that threat in other ations that choose to use Huawei to build up their 5G network.”
Senator Cotton also expressed his hope that the UK ‘weans’ itself off of Huawei:
“Like our Government’s stated reaction in January, it disappointed me. I understand that you face a different kind of situation than do we, because of the legacy networks you have—the 3G and 4G networks—that use Huawei technology. I do hope that as the Government refines its decision, if it does not reverse it outright, it will mitigate it by
minimising the use of Huawei technology, putting it on a shorter timeframe, limiting the expansion of the 5G network and taking the steps we have done to help wean 4G and 3G networks off Huawei’s legacy technology.
I have seen media reports that suggest that could happen as early as 2023. I would welcome that—I would welcome you doing it even earlier. I am a bit mystified about why you would spend the money to build out a 5G network using one kind of technology only to tear it out three years later. But again, we will continue to observe and work with your
Government and the decisions they take to try to ensure that our alliance remains as strong as it always has been and that we are also creating the kinds of alternatives that Mr Francois and I were just discussing for the rest of the world.”
When asked if the Government changing tack and reducing Huawei involvement to zero by 2023 would be enough to mitigate his concerns he responded:
“It obviously would in 2023, but remember that many of my concerns are not specific to the United Kingdom. To go back to legislation that we discussed earlier about F-35 fighters, we have got to make a decision about deploying those to many different countries. Obviously, if you no longer have Huawei technology in your network, then F-35 fighters could be based in your country under my legislation. That does not mean that I would drop my legislation, because my legislation is not about the United Kingdom; it is about Huawei and the threat that Huawei poses to our airmen and our aircraft. But I would welcome that decision to go to zero by 2023, and I would urge you to try to do so even sooner.”
“Some members of the Defence Select Committee have also expressed concerns over the UK Government including Huawei equipment in the UK 5G network, with MP for West Dunbartonshire Martin Docherty-Hughes saying “handing over your 5G network to the Communist party of any country is utter insanity”
I know we like to bash the SNP from time to time but this statement by Mr D-H is absolutely spot on. Would we let North Korea supply critical kit to the UK network – or even Russia? We would not.
This comment cut and pasted from one I made on another thread. I’m wondering whether the OneWeb news from a few weeks ago has some connection with this Huawei decision. Maybe yes, maybe no, but whatever way the OneWeb part-purchase has the potential, if all the stars align, to be absolutely massive news…
The UK Government announced the purchase of a 45% stake in OneWeb for $500m a couple of weeks ago together with a UK golden share giving HMG veto on any subsequent equity transfers/sales of OneWeb and also approval of all customers wanting to use the network.
It’s a huge gamble, and HMG will almost certainly have to put in quite a lot of extra cash to get the network completed (I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least another £1bn going in). Even if fully financed to completion there is then the significant technology gamble on whether Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites can give the same accuracy for a GPS system as the more traditional Medium Earth Orbit systems like the USA or Galileo systems if the rumours are true that one of the reasons for the purchase is to replace the lost access to Galileo. If these LEO can be made to deliver GPS though then LEO GPS would have significant benefits in terms of much stronger signal strength at ground level.
The second aspect of the OneWeb acquisition is satellite broadband at similar latency to existing UK fibre broadband (400Mbps bandwidth already, better than the top tier Virgin service I think (I believe that is 350Mbps), in reality contention on the satellites between multiple users, and maybe some bandwidth reserved for key customers such as military, will I suspect limit individual user bandwidth to more like the 20Mbps – 40Mbps range although building the constellation out beyond the planned 640-ish satellites could address that issue. If 5G was part of HMG’s plans for rural broadband and is now delayed due to the Huawei decision then maybe OneWeb can step in. It makes me wonder whether these two decisions, kicking out Huawei and buying into OneWeb, are connected.
Another interesting aspect of the OneWeb stake is the potential ability to offer subsidised or even free broadband access to certain locations, institutions, individuals etc in parts of developing countries that have no such access. That would be an extra and very useful tool in our soft power toolkit.
And finally low latency connections at high enough bandwidth to stream real time HD video and/or other high bandwidth sensor data from an antenna that is 36cm x 16cm and costs about $15 (just the antenna, the entire user terminal is expected to be in the $200 – $300 range) and such a connection being permanently available anywhere on the planet via a sovereign capability, including anywhere at sea, has the potential to totally transform the UK’s military communications. I even wonder whether, if an antenna mounted on a missile could maintain data lock on a LEO satellite, whether the launch operator could serve as his/her own man-in-the-middle and be sitting at their console on a T26 out at sea and taking live sensor feeds from a missile now way over the horizon and about to engage a target (once we get such missiles!). DaveyB might have quite a lot to say about the antenna tracking issue if he’s looked into this OneWeb stuff at all. (It is a phased array antenna I believe.)
If, and it’s a big if, all these gambles come good then this OneWeb acquisition could be absolutely massive news for UK hard and soft power (and for UK rural communities).
Oh, one other parting shot. The 76 satellites launched so far have been built in Florida with almost 600 more needed to get to the initial constellation size of 648 and then maybe thousands more if the constellation is expanded further, and regardless of constellation size there will also be a requirement for a small but constant trickle of replacements since each satellite has a limited life after which it is de-orbited to burn up in the atmosphere and then needs to be replaced. I really hope that with the significant UK stake that production will at least partly if not completely move to the UK and be a big boost to our satellite manufacturing industry.
OneWeb buy was a brilliant decision. Yes there are risks but over time you transfer the factory over to the U.K. from Florida and make it all here. Even if it is a dual site build that is still 300+ satellites that are made here. Also offers an alternate gps to U.K., US etc governments, gets us broadband coverage here and as foreign aid, gives you military broadband etc etc. To see the viability of his at LEO read this. With modern Atomic clocks on a chip costing 1.2k to enable atomic clocks for GPS and the opportunity to sync up On a Daily basis LEO GPS can work: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tyler_Reid5/publication/308795972_Leveraging_Commercial_Broadband_LEO_Constellations_for_Navigation/links/57f2ad8b08ae280dd0b565a6/Leveraging-Commercial-Broadband-LEO-Constellations-for-Navigation.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Thanks for that link DRS. I did a bit of web searching about the viability of LEO GPS and found some vaguer stuff with differing views on the viability but nothing anywhere near as detailed, comprehensive and well-structured as the article you linked to.
One thing I note from that article though is that towards the end and in the conclusion where they pull it all together the authors seem to lean towards a composite network. The most challenging issue that they seem to be unable to satisfactorily resolve any other way is the precise tracking of the orbits of each LEO so they end up with a system that uses MEO GPS to determine the orbits of the LEO satellites with sufficient accuracy. They do say that with sufficient ground-based tracking stations it is possible to get close (5m) to the accuracy required and also briefly mention constraining the problem by inter-satellite measurements between the LEO satellites so maybe extra work there might avoid the need for traditional GPS fixes.
If we did partner with the US and simply use their GPS we still get a competitive system with better ground signal strength (way more resistant to jamming) than Galileo but I’m still hoping suitably accurate LEO tracking can be achieved without needing positional data from conventional GPS otherwise we don’t quite get to a full stand-alone sovereign capability, or maybe we only get one that, were the USA to cut our GPS access, loses some degree of accuracy. Even that could be a big improvement on where we are now though, depending on how much accuracy was lost.
On all the rest we 100% agree. I am perplexed why many more people on this site haven’t been jumping up and down with excitement on this one. Persistent high bandwidth low-latency military-grade encrypted broadband instantly anywhere on the planet 24/7 with no satellite re-tasking or need to have a Zephyr-like system in the area? That has the potential to be a game-changer for the military and a huge asset for fully real-time control of remote vehicles and weapons systems way over the horizon from pretty much any platform. I note that the US military has already signed up with SpaceX as a customer.
Apart from slight concerns about LEO GPS without needing supplemental MEO GPS data my other slight negative on the deal is that the UK paid $500m for its 45% stake which values the company at $1.111bn. With this network potentially bringing so many critical capabilities to the UK I am a bit baffled why the UK didn’t commit a mere $60m extra (invest $560m instead of $500m) in order to get majority (50.4%) ownership. Maybe the other partner(s?) weren’t willing at this time to give the UK majority ownership. At least we do have the golden share giving vetoes on access and future ownership and maybe we can increase our stake later but that would presumably be at higher cost so if we were going to risk $500m then why not go the whole hog and risk $560m for majority control?
I add my thanks to @Julian’s, an interesting piece of work!
As we already have some very good satellite development and construction facilities and seem to be developing a small scale space launch industry too, these kinds of LEO satellites in polar orbits begin to make more and more sense as a sovereign asset- for both military and commercial comms and navigation.
Dare I say it, this almost sounds like the government investing in a technology/capability to benefit and build an existing British industry…?!
It was a terrible investment. Oneweb do not and have never made the type of satellites needed for GPS. We have domestic companies that do so why did we not invest in those?
Airbus was involved with Galileo (Portsmouth) and I am sure we can bring in Surrey Satellite Tech into this somehow too to solve the problems. Read the research article above to see how it can be done. Atomic clock chips are now available to be able to used this at scale in small satellites. If you had 3/4 of these offering redundancy on a small satellite you can do It: https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-frequency-references/5207-space-csac.
Having 700 satellites all giving you a gps signal gives you a lot of redundancy. Having broadband added to it means no need for separate satellites for the military just for data. It is a paradigm shift! Lots of risk and will not be easy but this gives a way back into this with many positives. Find some of it from foreign aid and give foreign aid the the form of basing ground stations in various counties that need investment bring in hi tech jobs in underdeveloped countries etc etc lots of opportunities here if it is done right. Also this buys a frequency spectrum internationally. Though I think you can argue that the U.K. should have access to the same frequencies for Galileo as it funded that programme too. Should just use different encryption keys. We should not have put ourselves in this position in the first place but that is a different issue:)
the big problem now is we need to check on the replacement kit,as Australia found out Huawei products still ended up in there 5g by backdoor means,ie rebadged and sold to 3rd party companies from different countries.Because China will do anything to sell it,s products from blatant copyright theft to espionage just to sell crap
there is a surprise. Boris talks tough and states we have done our own risk assessment, and then backs down on every point to the US. Where have we seen him do that before…
Any pretence that we have an independent foreign policy is now firmly squashed. The bungling incompetence of successive Tory regimes have landed us in a position of having few, if any, friends except an unequal relationship with the US. Bring on the chlorinated chickens folks!!!
If you don’t want chlorinated chicken, don’t buy it, no one is forcing it down your throat
That would be why when the USA wanted to bomb syria the uk government (Tory) said no and who honestly cares about chlorine chicken not me and have a look on any u.s supermarket website and see how much they pay for a chicken over there it’s nearly twice what we pay so if the USA wants to sell to the uk by the time u factor in delivery the price will be nearly 10 pound a chicken so they won’t sell any
IF US chicken is so costly and so unhealthy why are the EU and the UK so desperate to keep it out of their markets? If it costs more and is unhealthy who is going to buy it? Maybe, because the whole “chlorinated chicken” is one big protectionist scam, don’t you think?
The EU legislation on this is not a complaint about the use of chlorination per se but its use on abattoir meat. It is argued that the application of chlorination will promote the lowering of health and hygiene standards in abattoirs!
That’s correct H and a point the UK population and media miss entirely. It’s not about using Chlorine – that is used to wash lettuce and produce often – it is about the shoddy abattoir standards which means the chlorine rinse is the “get out of jail card”
Funny you should mention about washing lettuce with Chlorine…
As a Chef of 20 years, we would fill the sink up with water and use Chlorine Tablets , 1 or 2.
It took 3 washes of the lettuce just to get rid of most of the Chlorine smell and taste !!
Meanwhile, if you caught a whiff of it, you would certainly know the danger of the stuff.
No chance of me having a Chlorinated chicken !! Sod that
And I can argue that pigs fly. That doesn’t make it so. So American health standards and hygiene are so low that their abattoirs are unsafe and unhealthy. Nonsense. It’s a made -up argument to protect a poultry industry. The EU knows it, the world knows it, and you should know it.
If you can argue that ‘pigs can fly’ why would anyone be interested in what you say. The concerns are about European abattoirs not American ones. But if you allow the importation of chlorinated chicken then you, reasonably, would have to approve of its use in the domestic market!
most things are more expensive in the US…this has been brought on by the devaluation of sterling after the Brexit vote. mass imports to the UK may well undercut UK chicken prices though. I won’t buy it personally – not out of any particular dislike of US goods – but simply because IF it can be easily produced to higher standards here, it should be bought and consumed locally
I thought we might have got rid of the ‘chinless wonders’ but l may have to think again. Spark up Boris!
I hope Welsh lamb is exported to the US in return. Lamb is difficult to find here and when you do its usually Australian, sometimes kiwi. It’s damn expensive too. I don’t really know why they don’t produce more of their own lamb, I don’t think its that popular.
It won’t be the last time. This decision should have been made a long time ago. Boris himself said everything was fine, no threat to security. What’s changed?
Boris needs to up his game across the board.
I don’t think he does. He knows he can get away with it as he always has. It goes way back before brexit, but think the more obvious one of May’s deal being terrible and then the Boris deal which was materially the same thing with some worse things included (losing our share in the european bank) or his oven ready trade deal and now focus on no-deal. He is a master of saying one thing, and doing the complete reverse and getting away with.
Boris and his oven ready deals…..the only thing oven ready is the fat turkey in no10?
It is just political trading threatening one party with something they don’t want to give you something that you want. We now have “goodwill” with the Americans that hopefully helps us in any trade deals we may want or make. That it turn helps in negotiations with Europe (regardless if you agree that was a good or bad idea we have to make do with the situation we have at hand now). Again requires skill and luck to line it all up.
Your not thinking this through. We stated firmly that our intel people said there was no risk, and then completely backed down to the US pressure at the huge costs to our own tel co companies. That is a clear sign to the US of lack of strength, and it will be exploited in the trade deals. They now know for sure, that we will do whatever they ask to get a deal, no matter how bad it is to the companies of the UK.
To be fair to Boris, this is not a back down.
We have an effective and perfectly acceptable set-up to review and inspect Huawei equipment that will be used in our comms infrastructure via the NCSC (attached to GCHQ). It is their expert opinion that assured and recommended to government that it was OK to put higher risk products within our network in the way that we were going to do it (edge devices, limited share, etc.). The US kicked up a stink, especially with the 5 Eyes and F-35 ridiculousness and the government stood firm, because their expert analysis said it was OK.
Then, the US extended their sanctions on Chinese tech including Huawei, so that they’d no longer be able to use US-made chips. Instead, they’d have to develop their own. And that’s when the NCSC raised a flag and said that they’d no longer be able to guarantee an acceptable level of security. It is on this new recommendation that the government is now changing its mind.
It is really unfortunate that it’s being described as a “U-turn” etc. because it is really the right decision based upon an updated threat assessment (caused by the US changing the game, rather than Huawei).
About time.
Why the hell do we allow china to gobble up the west’s big businesses! Money I know but security’s worth more!. They aren’t buying them to help us out!!
And I wonder how much this is going to cost us now, with China supposedly pissed and will be bombarding the UK with lots more cyber attacks And viruses Of the computer kind this time! China really sucks. We should start producing Far more of what we need in Europe, but sadly China’s buying up so many european industry and big businesses it’ll be impossible to not deal with them!
I think it was Mao Tse Deng who said, “the west will buy the rope China uses to hang them…”
He didn’t. On the other hand Lenin said “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
And Khruschev said ‘We will bury you’…..
Nah…that was Sting!
Thanks Ron – same message, different dictator. .
Here’s an interesting article re the above
https://finanz.dk/chinas-massive-trade-imbalance-the-rope-with-which-they-would-hang-us/
And we will cyber attack them as well
And With China a leader in Cyber atacks I sure hope we give them as good as we get…
Are they now? What basis do you have to state they are leaders in cyber attacks?
China has a very large population and there are for sure a lot of privacy hackers there, just like there are a load in the UK or anywhere else. Plus its not like we are also not into the state hacking game either.
If GCHQ stated that the risk can be managed, then i tend to believe them over US politicians etc. This is purely a political decision, rather than a security one.
The question is where will the new equipment come from, i really hope it is not the US. Unfortunately there are no domestic firms that can provide it.
Why wouldn’t you want equipment from the USA
Because unlike China the US has a proven history of spying on people of the UK and passing it onto our government in breach of UK law.
I have no problems with governments having the ability to spy on its people, but that has to be done following a court order with justification, not just because they don’t like what someone is saying about them.
And the UK spies on US citizens in return Steve, passing the data to NSA. See “Columbia Annex”
The DG of the SS and others have stated many times about the rise of both Chinese and Russian cyber and espionage activities.
I don’t think the US or HMG give a monkeys about what is being said about them. They, and the intelligence agencies, do care though about the need to find out who might be a threat. Otherwise, how do they know who to target with more in depth investigation/surveillance via a court order?
How to do that with billions of text, email, fax, and calls a day without mass interception capability and data mining?
I have no problem with it myself.
Its about rule of law. The law in the UK requires that for wire taps or home searches you need a court order, the same should be true with internet usage etc.
If you allow states to monitor their citizens without checks and balances you are on a slippery slope.
Could say the PM order the secret services to investigate a journalist that was investing them and who’s investigation could damage their politician aims or could the PM use it to damage the opposition party. Could the government use the powers to victimize a whistleblower etc etc.
We need to be worried about our government spying on us, whether it is done directly or indirectly through allies, if that means they are getting around the law.
“Its about rule of law. The law in the UK requires that for wire taps or home searches you need a court order,”
They do get court orders, via requests by the Home and Foreign secretaries. ONCE an issue has been identified. To identify that issue quickly you need surveillance.
“the same should be true with internet usage etc.”
How? The real world is not like that. The Docklands bombings, as one example, were not stopped due to delay while the red tape of indecision went round and round. You cannot always wait for some judge to rule. How long would that take?
So you think the GSOC at Cheltenham ( GCHQ Sigint Operations Centre, also known as the Events Management Centre ) would have to wait for the endless process of going through the courts to react? They monitor world events, the worlds “electronic pulse” 24/7, in conjunction with our allies in the UKUSA agreement, by being plugged in to satellite communications, undersea phone cables, mobile phones, internet, and all the rest. By law certain phone companies must furnish other data too. When an outrage occurs, or a military confrontation happens, assets can be brought to bear to study that location. You do not sit there while a judge decides. By then the “Golden Hour” is passed.
You need to be able to react and “zero in” on something of interest once that trace is identified. To do that you need surveillance, you need to be able to see the issue to react to it.
“If you allow states to monitor their citizens without checks and balances you are on a slippery slope.”
Slippery slope to what? The UK is not N Korea, or China, whom you defend yet they suppress their citizens on a daily basis. I’d suggest terrorist bombings unchecked and foreign espionage agencies operating at will because the intelligence community is hamstrung by needing to go to a judge is a bigger slippery slope. A judge who is not security cleared and cannot be privy to the sources and methods that collected that intelligence in the first place.
“Could say the PM order the secret services to investigate a journalist that was investing them”
They could. And equally the intelligence agencies would likely laugh him off. Boris Johnson could also be a KGB mole, like Wilson, but does not mean it he is.
The intelligence community is directed in its tasks by the JIC. The PM would have to corrupt them as well, plus the liaison with CIA, plus the military and civil service bods working there, or just go directly over their heads to “C” I think a James Bond villains plot more likely!
“We need to be worried about our government spying on us”
Except they’re not. The workers at GCHQ have many more things to worry about in their activities. Bulk collection of data does not mean they sit there listening to it and having a laugh. They would not be able to listen to or read billions of communications a day. Which is why most is automated and the majority discarded quickly.
The Security Service has thousands of people of interest, and a big shortage of assets ( just like in defence ) to react to them. They have to prioritise and try and keep juggling a thousand balls with only two hands. But the terrorists need only be lucky once. When a ball is dropped, its all over the papers, people are dead, and MI5 is getting blamed again.
Sorry for the rant, but I passionately support the intelligence community is defending this country, by all means, including surveillance.
Except what you state is the theory and its been proven by snowden etc to not be happening in relaity.
The examples i gave are ones that have happened in the US under Trump, and could easily happen here if we do not make sure there are checks and balances.
“Except what you state is the theory and its been proven by snowden etc to not be happening in relaity.”
Course its happening in reality, you think GSOC is a theory?
The mass surveillance I described but briefly is exactly what Snowden exposed. What has he “proved?” Mass surveillance was exposed to the public by Duncan Campbell in the 90’s, not Snowden, though most researchers knew of it anyway.
Snowden is just another whistle blower who will sit on his hands once other nations and groups react to his “revelations” making it harder to combat them.
The issues I described in stopping terrorist outrages are reality. For every failure highlighted by our blasted media there are plenty of successes but barely mentioned.
The current increased surveillance regime in America expanded under Bush, not Trump, in response to 9/11. Trumps antics have nothing whatsoever to do with what I have commented on regarding the need to have these abilities to spy on citizens.
and this is why we should be worried about the US having backdoors into our systems, as our own government and secret services are exploiting it to get around UK law, its a major problem.
Exactly USA has some of the best and top tech company’s on earth and looks to be a huge player for future tech. USA is a melting pot of all worlds best brains all in one nation.
Just like it was a Brit at Apple who developed/ designed the apple iPad, iPod, iMac, and iPhone, lots of American creations are by foreign brains, they couldn’t have gone to space so quick without europeans. And the British had a large Part in the Manhattan project.
“gone to space so quick without europeans.”
Without a Nazi, no less. Operation Paperclip spirited many of them to New Mexico.
And the UK and Russia were at it too. They were useful, their genocidal links ignored.
China are “a” leader meaning one of multiple leaders and are by many accounts the leaders in cyber hacking/ atacks along with
– USA second
-Turkey third
-Russia fourth
I quote-
“ Number 1 is China. By quite a significant margin, China houses the largest number of hackers on Earth. During the last quarter of 2012, the world’s most populous country accounted for 41 percent of the world’s hacking traffic.”
End of quote
Inevitable but i think ultimately the right decision. Brace yourselves now for Chinese retaliation in various forms and also time for Ericsson and Nokia to put their prices up.
In light of recent events in Hong Kong, I guess it’s right to re-evaluate our relationship with China and Chinese companies, but this decision is going to cost the UK dear. Huawei isn’t just a supplier of 5G technology, its products are already widely used in all the UK networks. Getting rid of Huawei means spending time and hundreds of millions of pounds in ripping out and replacing existing kit instead of investing in new infrastructure.
I can’t help wondering if the 2027 date was chosen as it was not an election or build up to an election year, meaning that it might be not a completely solid deadline.
Its also really hard to know how to deal with China. For sure we have concerns about their government and human rights record, but also the majority of electronic etc stuff we buy is build there and it is the worlds 2nd largest economy meaning it will be a major buyer of UK goods.
Does isolating a country with sanctions actually work, i am not sure there has really been any modern examples of it working beyond just hitting the average person whilst the rich of the country just take more from them.
I’d still pay higher taxes to remove their equipment, its worth it
personally by 2027 i fully expect to get my broadband via starlink satellite anywhere on the planet….. at that point i won’t really care about 5g 🙂
Probably not if you are in an urban area. Even Musk himself, with his huge vested interest in promoting the technology, often points out in interviews that the technology is primarily targeted at relatively sparsely populated areas and isn’t really applicable to serving large numbers of users in densely populated urban areas because the contention on the limited bandwidth from the satellites, even with Starlink’s planned huge number of satellites, would drop individual data rates too low if too many people in a single area are signed up.
Personally I don’t care much about 5g either right now. At home wired broadband works just fine for me and when on the move 4g is good enough for everything I want to do (and apparently 5g, at least for the early generations, is going to be a lot more power-hungry than 4G thus reducing battery life on my phone which is not something I would want).
LOL this is a typical Boris cock up
Pretty sure it was Theresa that let the dogs in against all advice.
Well he had the chance to stop it in January.
Like the masks… and everything else he touches
Actually this has a bit of playing off both side to get what we want. Either a strike of genius or blind luck. 🙂 See one web post above.
Allowing a totalitarian state to kept deeply involved in this was always a bad idea.
Which totalitarian state is that ?
Now you’re just being silly !
It’s amazing that after all the Chicoms have done and continue to do to the West and even their own people that we still buy anything from them. They can never be trusted. Nice to see the Brits’ finally waking up to that fact.
Also anyone who thinks that this pandemic started by just some old lady/man eating an infected bat is crazy. The Chicoms were most probably messing around with this virus in their labs and it got out. Interesting that the Chicoms have at least 1 bio facility in the same location this all started in…….
Btw, I know the lefties will drop the “conspiracy” term they always do when they disagree with someone. Because they believe the Chicoms are good, decent people. haha
Haha Dan…..except that the scientific viewpoint is that this is not a man engineered virus. But then, what do these scientists know…..they still think that NASA got men to the moon and back…haha…haha ?
It doesn’t have to have been manmade for the pandemic to have spread from a biolab. They work with all kinds of nasty, naturally-occurring stuff there.
Either way, the assertion that this was being tinkered with in a Lab is without any proof whatsoever. These sorts of allegations are put out there by reactionary xenophobes without a shred of evidence! Porton Down is near Salisbury…I suppose we should accept that the Salisbury poisonings was down to rogue technicians?
Not just spread by xenophobes, also spread by Trump. In his case its to appeal to his supporters, and win political points and has very little to do with xenophobe.
Russia spread the story that Salisbury poisoning was linked to Porton Down, again to further their political aims.
p.s. A lot of people in the US will believe it because their president told them it was the case and not because of xenophober
Thanks Steve…but I would argue that Trump is a reactionary xenophobe…..amongst other things! We are caught between the economic bullying of both the US and China; and this latest episode is an example of what Britain has to look forward to. Having rejected the economic powerbase of the EU in favour of paddling our own canoe, we are now being shown up for what we really are: a badly led country that has done its best to destroy its own manufacturing capability. The idea that we are going to bestride the world as a great power again is as laughable as the dreams of Boris Churchill!
Maybe not. No doubt Churchill was a good war leader, but he was not a good PM, which is why he got voted out so fast. He was a drunk, a racist and had no idea how to lead the country in peacetime and we paid heavily as a country for it afterwards.
No question Churchhill was the person we needed during the war, but same can be said with Boris, he was the person we needed to get us through the political brexit mess by spinning everything, but his not the person to handle the reality of the exit / trade deals or COVID
Morning H. Except, that comment “bestride the world as a great power” only ever exists in the minds of folk such as your good self!
I, and many others voted for independence and greater immigration controls, not world domination. The Empire is long gone. Even if the UK is weaker for it. That, considering the UK is in the G8 of economic nations and not Mozambique, is in our hands.
Yes, perhaps you did? But that doesn’t alter the situation we find ourselves in. There seems to be a level of denial about the economic future of our country. Leading industrialists and economics experts have argued against the direction we have taken. But who cares, it is more important to have greater control over immigration. I don’t see the number of illegals crossing the channel reducing and Britain’s offer to 3million Hong Kong Chinese kind of mitigates against the concept of planned immigration. And who is rubbing their hands together at our new found freedom? Well, there won’t be many in this country but, I understand that Russia, China and the US are absolutely delighted. Doesn’t this worry you?
A bit too late to worry about brexit, its happened and we take the positive or negative consequences of it.
What is now important is that we do not band over backwards to every country in the world just to get a trade deal with them, we need to ensure that our interests are taken into account rather than signing whatever the other country offers so we can say we have trade deals.
If we bail out of Europe without a deal, this country will be at the mercy of the carpet-baggers…we are very close to being up shit creek, without a paddle!
Worst case is we have WTO rules, yes it will mean a significant hit to the GDP, but after Covid i doubt anyone will be able to split the two and its not the end of the world scenario. As always Boris will spin it and blame the EU/rest of the world for not playing fair in the negotiations and blame Covid etc rather than taking any ownership for failing to get deals done.
If we don’t get good trade deals, financially for sure the country will be worse off than before Brexit, but the country has spoken and they don’t care about trade deals (voted for other reasons) or didn’t bother to try and understand the impact. For most i suspect they would take the financial impact (as long as it does not impact them directly) to gain in other areas such as immigration or freedom of law.
Anyone that vaguely understands global politics and global trade knew we would be exactly were we are post brexit when they voted and yet i assume most still voted in favor or we wouldn’t have had a majority voting for it.
Thanks for that Steve….I largely agree with your observations. I think the impact of the Huawei ‘about turn’ is both humiliating for Britain and signals the sort of bully-boy relationship we will have with the US going forwards. This is extremely embarrassing …. not quite on the scale of Suez in 1956, but not far off it. Our credibility as a post-Brexit independent state has been dealt a sizable blow. I suspect that there will be a good few bureaucrats in Brussels having a good snigger at this one. And who could blame them.
Ah. Good ol’ europe. Do you mean the same bunch of countries who have sponged off the USA and the UK for the last hundred years ??
Just for starters France and Italy have never paid their WW1 debts to UK – in todays terms using price of gold France woould owe UK roughly 250 bn sterling….and to USA even more….
The debate is about Britain and its future, not Europe 100 years ago.
Money is still owed mate. And by those who insist the UK must pay …its called hypocrisy.
of course the great irony is that Brexit may well lead to greater levels of immigration not less. Many of those people will be allowed residence because they have sought-after skills. Their own, poor, native countries will be denied those skills and the investments made in them…
I agree, but then this has been a poorly thought out issue to start with. The scenario that you illustrate is already being played out! Plebiscites are a load of tosh when it comes to complex issues!
agreed. better for town/council level only.
Still think there is “zero evidence whatsoever” for the biolab origin theory?
Ok. Result…But what about the other Chinese tech? Chinese involvement in other core infrastructure runs deep. Very deep.
I seem to be the only person in the uk that remembers the revelation that the UK signed a huge 3 or 4g contract with huawei without consulting Whitehall first. There was uproar. For all of 5 minutes before China got upset.
Certain people have sold the UK out for a quick buck. Our PM and his family are held firmly by the balls by Jinping Independent Traders.
The only person who has had the balls to call them out for what they are, consistently, is one Mr Trump, Pres. USA. And what a ballsy mother fucker that man is. China virus and all that. Slapping tariffs to the equal value of what China took in trade from American farmers.
Guess what happened, China came crawling back and bought millions of usd worth of yank produce. Trump gave the farmers the tariff Money to the value of approx 28billion. That’s leadership.
The risk of losing American support vs China being very very peeved was too much for our floppy haired dope of a PM.
This better not be the end of the issue or we’re fucked. Write to your MPs.
And your point is?
Best news since we restored carrier capability. PRC assuances are worthless. Their actions speak far louder than their propaganda. We were nuts to have entertained it for so long.
As of today-
Wonder if this is true
The British government asked Japan to help build its 5G wireless networks without Huawei Technologies
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-asks-japan-for-huawei-alternatives-in-5g-networks-nikkei/ar-BB16UECE?ocid=msedgntp