TPG removes last of Huawei from its 5G network as warnings about China intensify

The third biggest telco says it is removing the last vestiges of China’s Huawei from its phone towers and while the process slowed its 5G rollout, its network is now Australia’s most modern.

The former Coalition federal government banned China’s Huawei from Australia’s 5G rollout in 2018, citing national security.

Australia’s third biggest telco, TPG, says it is removing the last vestiges of China’s Huawei from its phone towers, saying while it has slowed down its 5G launch it is providing it with a superior network.

David Yeo – the executive overseeing TPG’s 5G rollout – said the telco had to remove all of Huawei’s technology and “rebuild the site from scratch” after the former Coalition federal government in 2018 banned the Chinese company, citing national security.

“No doubt if the government did not ban Huawei, our path to 5G would have been easier,” Mr Yeo said.

“Effectively, it was like a knockdown and rebuild of the site every time we go, so we removed everything that’s Huawei related then – if you’re doing so much work – we remove everything that’s sort of aged a little bit, even if it had a little bit more lifespan. So we put everything brand new in.

“It is now arguably the most modern network in Australia.”

Despite the slowdown caused by removing Huawei, TPG was the first telco to switch off its 3G network last December to focus on 4G and 5G. This month it announced it has now activated more than 3500 live 5G sites, covering about 98.9 per cent of the population across Australia’s 12 biggest cities and regions.

It plans to triple the number of 5G sites in regional Australia early next year as part of its $1.6bn network sharing deal with Optus, which last week won the Opensignal Mobile Network Experience Report fastest download speed award for the seventh consecutive time.

Mr Yeo said it had replaced Huawei with Nokia hardware, citing its reliability and “very advanced” software.

“They (Nokia) are really responsive and they really understand the customer-centric attitude that we want to bring to building and rolling out our network,” he said.

Cyber security experts have stepped up warnings about the use of Chinese technology in critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications.

A cyber attack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of US broadband providers this month, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorised network wire-tapping requests.

The US’s biggest water utility, American Water, said it also had been hit by a cyber attack.

Energy Renaissance founder Brian Craighead has warned Chinese-made home and commercial battery storage systems were vulnerable to Israel-style exploding pager strikes, saying software which prevents batteries from overcharging could be hacked, triggering explosions and wiping out large sections of Australia’s electricity grid.

Although Australia does not face immediate threats, Cyber Security Co-operative Research Centre chief executive Rachael Falk and Liberal Senator James Paterson are concerned.

To mitigate such risk, the US Biden administration has announced a ban on the use on American roads of internet-reliant cars containing Chinese software and hardware due to a concern they could be used to cause accidents or allow hackers to infiltrate critical infrastructure.

However, federal Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said Australia would not follow the lead and that he wanted Australians to be able to access as many clean-emissions vehicles as possible.

Originally published as TPG removes last of Huawei from its 5G network as warnings about China intensify