Australian telco says that the lack of a clear path to upgrade to 5 G will put an end to its network implementation.
TPG said it will stop the roll-out of its mobile network as a result of the Australian government ‘s ban on Huawei 5G equipment. Canberra officially locked out Huawei and ZTE in August, saying that the vendors were likely to be subject to extrajudicial instructions from Beijing and that the government could not find a set of security checks that would mitigate high-risk equipment in a 5G scenario.
The Australian telco informed the ASX on Tuesday that it had purchased equipment for 1,500 sites and 900 small cell sites completely or partially completed. The company has already raised 100 million AUD of costs and another 30 million AUD of costs.
“It is extremely disappointing that the company’s clear strategy to become a 5 G mobile network operator has been overturned by factors beyond TPG ‘s control, “said Executive Chairman David Teoh. ” In the past two years, an enormous amount of time and resources [ sic] has been invested in the creation and implementation of a strategy that would have enabled TPG to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the advent of 5G.
“The company said that it had yet to decide what to do with the 5G spectrum it picked up last month for AU$263 million from its partner Vodafone. TPG and Vodafone are in the middle of a merger creating an entity of 15 billion AUD.
Last week, due to lack of information from the parties, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission postponed their decision on the merger. On Monday, Teoh said that TPG was still committed to the merger. Jeremy Mitchell, Australian corporate director of Huawei, said that the announcement was “extremely disappointing. ”
“As predicted, the 5 G ban on Huawei by the Australian government will lead to lower competition and higher prices for Australian consumers and businesses. Not only are higher prices, but Australians will miss the competition that drives innovation in technology, “he said.” Huawei, Australia’s largest wireless technology provider, has a 15-year record of providing safe and secure technology in this country and has always offered and been open to independent security audits and testing.
“At the same time, TPG announced that the United States has unsealed charges against Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou. The charge relates to conspiracy, fraud, impediment to justice and theft of intellectual property.