London, UK, 5G network quality is at the bottom of 10 European cities, "related to the ban on Huawei"

Following the end of last year, the United Kingdom became the first country in the G7 with the lowest 5G network speed, the American consumer news and business channel website (CNBC) reported on February 13, citing relevant survey results, that in terms of 5G network experience quality, London, the capital of the United Kingdom, ranked at the bottom of the 10 major European cities, far behind Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, Lisbon and other European cities.

In an interview with CNBC, Rafael Galarreta, chief marketing officer of MedUX, the Spanish company responsible for the network benchmark, highlighted that the UK's ban on Chinese company Huawei from 5G network construction may be one of the reasons for the country's poor performance, "especially since the UK government only issued a ban on Huawei after the 5G deployment was launched." ”

CNBC quoted MedUX's report as saying that among all European cities, Berlin, Germany, has the best 5G network experience and has the highest 5G coverage rate of 89.6%. In contrast, at the bottom of the list, only nearly 77.5% of London's residents have access to a 5G signal, which is lower than the average for European cities.

Moreover, the average downlink access speed of 5G in London is only 143Mbps. The second-to-last worst is Munich, Germany, with an average 5G downlink access speed of 259Mbps.

According to the report, there are many reasons why London lags behind its European partners, and MedUX's chief marketing officer Galaretta specifically mentioned that although it is a difficult task to quantify the impact of disabling Huawei on the UK network, he still believes that Huawei has been forced to withdraw from the UK's 5G network construction in recent years, which is likely to be one of the reasons for the poor quality of London's 5G network.

According to reports, the United Kingdom began rolling out 5G networks in 2019, but suddenly announced the following summer that its domestic operators must completely stop using Huawei equipment in 5G networks by 2027. British operators were harshly criticised for the decision at the time, arguing that it interfered with their 5G deployment plans, and the UK's 5G network construction was immediately in trouble.

"This delay in deployment is likely to impact overall coverage, accessibility and user experience [of 5G networks], especially given that the Huawei ban was issued by the UK government after the 5G rollout was launched," Galareta said. ”

Coincidentally, at the end of last year, the British media Financial Times (FT) also found that the UK lagged behind in the global 5G race, which is related to the British government's ban on the use and removal of Huawei's 5G equipment and services. The Telegraph also added that the UK government's ban on Huawei has "dragged down" the country's 5G network buildup.

At that time, the report quoted Opensignal, a global mobile network research institution, to analyze the 5G download speed of mobile users in G7 countries, saying that although the United Kingdom was one of the first countries to start commercializing 5G services, and the sales of 5G smartphones in the country still ranked first in Europe, but now its 5G mobile communication service quality and network speed are lagging behind in the G7 and ranking at the bottom.

The average 5G download speed of mobile users in G7 countries Screenshot from FT

In May 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that Huawei, a leader in 5G technology, would be added to the "Entity List" on the grounds of so-called "safeguarding national security", launching an economic bullying campaign that uses state power to sanction specific Chinese companies. The UK succumbed to political pressure from the US and decided to ban Huawei's technology and services despite the fact that Huawei has made important contributions to the UK's economic, social and telecommunications development in the past 20 years.

Former British Business Secretary Cable has publicly stated that the British government's decision to ban the use of Huawei's 5G equipment and services "has nothing to do with national security" and is under pressure from the United States. During his tenure as commerce secretary, the intelligence and security services repeatedly assured that the use of Huawei's services would not pose any risks.

Even the British Culture Secretary at the time, Oliver Dowden, who announced the ban, admitted that the ban on Huawei equipment would delay the UK's 5G construction plan for a year, which is expected to bring about 500 million pounds of economic losses, and that the complete removal of Huawei equipment within 7 years would further delay the UK's 5G construction by 2 to 3 years, bringing additional economic losses of hundreds of millions of pounds.

On July 14, 2020, then British Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced his final decision on Huawei to Parliament

In response, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China has repeatedly said that this is not a question of one company or one industry, but a question of the British side highly politicizing commercial and technological issues at any cost, a more obvious threat to the security of China's investment in the UK, and a question of our confidence in whether the UK market can remain open, fair and non-discriminatory. We are gravely concerned about this. China will make a comprehensive and serious assessment of this incident and take all necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.

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