The Government will incentivise open-interface solutions, and facilitate the phase-out of 2G and 3G networks.
The need to diversify after restricting Huawei: On 30 November 2020, the UK Government unveiled its 5G supply chain diversification strategy. This was initially announced in July 2020 when the Government decided to remove Huawei equipment from the country’s 5G networks within seven years.
The three key pillars of the strategy: The Government will focus on supporting the incumbent suppliers in the near term; attracting new suppliers into the UK market to build resilience and competition and accelerating open-interface solutions so that the UK market will not be reliant on any single vendor. As part of the plan, the Government will establish an R&D ecosystem including a major OpenRAN trial and a UK National Telecoms Lab.
Helping the switch-off of 2G and 3G: The Government also commits to support the phasing out of legacy technologies such as 2G and 3G. This could help operators modernise their networks and take the opportunity to use new suppliers.
