Nokia and Ericsson replace Huawei for Proximus and Orange’s 5G / 4G / 3G / 2G network in Belgium
The ongoing trade/technology war between China and the US isn’t slowing down and every day Huawei is the company the seems to be losing the most from it. After UK announced a ban on Huawei network gear few months ago, and Nokia stepped in to help BT upgrade their network, the same is happening in Belgium.
Nokia will build the 5G RAN infrastructure (includes base stations, antennas, etc.) for Belgium operators Proximus and Orange, while Swedish Ericsson will handle the 5G core network. Proximus and Orange also picked Nokia to modernise their 2G, 3G and 4G network that relies on Huawei gear. Nokia will effectively replace the “old” Huawei gear and the Chinese vendor’s gear will be phased out from the network by 2023.
This decision, as Reuters reports, could have come under political pressure because Belgium is allegedly getting ready to ban Huawei and ZTE gear from core networks and, in part, because of US sanctions that could make Huawei equipment less competitive in the long run.
