TPGs plans for a 4th Aust Mobile network dead after Huawei Ban

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wellygary

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#245318 29-Jan-2019 11:46

Well, this is an interesting twist and highlights that there must be a significant cost difference between Huawei gear and the others....

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/28/reuters-america-update-1-australias-tpg-telecom-halts-mobile-network-rollout-over-huawei.html

"TPG Telecom Ltd said on Tuesday it decided to cease rollout of its mobile network in Australia after the country's government prohibited the use of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd equipment in 5G networks last year.

"A key reason for the selection of the vendor and the design of TPG's network was that there was a simple upgrade path to 5G, using Huawei equipment," the company said in a statement.

TPG said it had incurred expenditures of about A$100 million ($71.66 million) in the rollout and that it was not in a position to announce any decision on its future strategy."

Technofreak

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#2169596 29-Jan-2019 13:09

Where does it mention anything about price diferences between different suppliers?

There is likely a cost saving through upgrading equipment from one manufacturer rather than switching to a new supplier for 5G but that's not directly implied in that article either.

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SaltyNZ

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#2169600 29-Jan-2019 13:19

Technofreak: Where does it mention anything about price diferences between different suppliers?

There is likely a cost saving through upgrading equipment from one manufacturer rather than switching to a new supplier for 5G but that's not directly implied in that article either.

There is that as well as the fact that having multiple realistic options for vendors allows you to get the best price from all of them. There is already a real lack of competition in the RAN - Huawei, Nokia Networks and Ericsson are the only three serious players - and by removing Huawei from the mix you make it that much worse. In the core it is less of an issue because these days everything runs on Linux in a VM, which means there are a lot of small players with very viable products.

But in the RAN you have a huge investment in dedicated, specialised equipment, which needs to undergo rigorous certifications even to be powered on outside, let alone used in a production network.

There is also the added wrinkle that there are standards and then there are standards ... and the newer they are, the cleverer they are, the more the opportunity for wiggle room in interpretation of those standards. Interoperability is a real issue, and you make things much easier on yourself if your RAN and core come from the same vendor.

So yes, banning one of the only three viable producers of a particular technology does have a material impact on the commercial terms you'll get from the other guys, and that cost will be passed on.

As to "Why is this a problem for 5G, but wasn't for 4G?" Two possible answers - in NZ, at least, TICSA had a grandfather clause for projects already underway, which LTE was, and also the situation has become more urgent from the agency's point of view because of the Chinese national security law that obliges all Chinese citizens to spy for the government upon demand, even outside China.

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wellygary

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#2169603 29-Jan-2019 13:24

Technofreak: Where does it mention anything about price diferences between different suppliers?

There is likely a cost saving through upgrading equipment from one manufacturer rather than switching to a new supplier for 5G but that's not directly implied in that article either.

The article doesn't mention pricing, but surely if others were within cooee of the Huawei price TPG would look at using another vendor for the base 4G rollout (which is what they are doing now) and then follow their upgrade path.... rather than binning the entire mobile network...