Huawei has secured a deal with Telefónica in Germany, one of the three major operators in the country, to build part of its 5G network. The company said that it will use equipment from Huawei and Finland’s Nokia to build its 5G network, provided Huawei equipment met the government’s security requirements.
Both Nokia and Huawei will supply equipment for 5G antennas, Telefónica said, adding that a decision on suppliers for the core network would be made in 2020.
Markus Haas, the CEO of Telefónica Deutschland said,
“With the new decade and the start of 5G, it’s a growth phase for our company. We are investing extra money to capture market share, especially in rural areas and business customers, with a high-performance mobile and fixed-line infrastructure.”
Haas also confirmed that Telefónica Deutschland is aiming for its 5G expansion to start in the first quarter of the new year, initially in the five largest German cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt.
The company expects this expansion to be largely completed by the end of 2021, and its target is that its 5G network will reach 16 million people in 30 cities by the end of 2022.
The other two major German telcos, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone Group, have not said anything publicly about their choice of vendors for the 5G rollout which is expected to gather pace in 2020.
However, last week, Deutsche Telekom said that it had stopped doing deals with 5G vendors as it awaits clarity on what’s become a political debate over Huawei’s presence in Germany
In October, the German Government said it would not be banning any vendor from participating in the 5G rollout, saying all vendors would be treated alike.
