Portugal left telecoms in limbo, banned Huawei but not subsidizing replacement

Portugal is not going to pay subsidies for the country’s telecoms for removing Huawei from their 5G network infrastructure. This announcement came as the government announced Huawei and other Chinese companies under “High-Risk” equipment makers.

Mario Campolargo, the secretary of state for digitalization, said that Portugal doesn’t consider compensating operators for replacing equipment.

“It will take into account an acceptable balance between security and the investments that were made by the operators,” said Campolargo, who reports directly to the prime minister and chairs the CSSC.

ANACOM, Portugal’s national regulatory authority for the communications sector will be responsible for the replacement and meeting the projected deadline.

This is not new as governments including US and UK facing issues in compensating the telecoms to meet the replacement costs. This is a wide problem for the telecoms, which only get about half of the money that they’ve invested in telecom gear.

Mario Campolargo, the secretary of state for digitalization, said the cybersecurity council CSSC’s decision in May was based on an independent, strict security assessment following European Union guidelines and was not directly aimed at banning Chinese suppliers such as Huawei.

However, the latest decision by Portugal appears to be a blow to Huawei rather than anything else. As EU is also urging more of its states to ban the telecom operator.

Coming back to Portugal, leaving telecoms in limbo and not compensating them for the replacement cost would bring a big discomfort in their revenue as well as new terminal purchase.

(source)