Telefónica Defies US, Selects Nokia, Huawei for 5G

Telefónica today announced that Nokia and Huawei will be providing equipment for its 5G network in Germany, despite an ongoing campaign by the U.S. government to pressure its allies to remove and preclude the Chinese networking giant’s equipment from their networks. Telefónica today announced that Nokia and Huawei will be providing equipment for its 5G network in Germany, despite an ongoing campaign by the U.S. government to pressure its allies to remove and preclude the Chinese networking giant’s equipment from their networks. In October the German government declined to ban any vendors from participating in the design and buildout of 5G mobile networks. Telefónica is the latest operator in Germany that has announced plans to build out its 5G network using Huawei’s equipment. Vodafone Germany and Deutsche Telekom launched 5G networks using Huawei’s technology earlier this year. The U.S. government maintains that Chinese telecom vendors, Huawei and ZTE in particular, represent a threat to national security, and it has taken steps to limit the vendors’ ability to compete for 5G contracts in the United States and other western countries. Nonetheless and with the blessing of German authorities, all three of the country’s leading operators decided to move forward with the deployment of their 5G networks using Huawei’s equipment. The German government has yet to finalize new security guidelines for 5G network operators. Telefónica won’t, however, be going all-in on Huawei. The company will also use Nokia’s networking equipment to foster diversity in its networks and prevent single-supplier dependencies. In a news release, Telefónica notes that the deployment of Nokia and Huawei’s equipment will ultimately be subject to successful certification under the aforementioned guidelines. Telefónica is expected to announce vendors for its 5G network core in 2020. According to Telefónica, its 5G network will launch in the five largest German cities: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt in 2020 with completion tentatively slated for the end of 2021. By 2022 the operator aims to provide 5G service in more than 30 cities with 16 million inhabitants. Telefónica serves 340 million customers including 6.5 million businesses across many countries. During a press conference in late November, José María Álvarez-Pallete, chairman and CEO of Telefónica, said the operator would prioritize its network development around key markets in Spain, Brazil, United Kingdom, and Germany, while spinning off operations in Latin America. The operator announced plans to create a new business unit called Telefónica Tech aimed at opportunities in cybersecurity, cloud computing, and IoT. And it also formed a holding company for its network infrastructure called Telefónica Infra, which will focus on getting more value out of its radio access network (RAN), including distributed antenna systems, data centers, edge computing, greenfield fiber projects, and submarine cables. As Telefónica builds out its 5G network in Germany it is also expanding its 4G LTE network in preparation for future 5G deployments, particularly those in rural parts of the country. The company plans to build out more than 10,000 LTE locations and claims it will provide LTE service to 99% of German households by the end of 2020. Some of this will be fueled by an ongoing collaboration between Telefónica, DT, and Vodafone aimed at building a joint network of 6,000 mobile cell sites across the country to combat dead zones. The collaboration was a condition of the country’s last 5G spectrum auction.