BT CEO: Restricting Huawei will cost the company £500 million

Earlier this week, the British government approved the use of Huawei equipment in 5G networks by domestic operators, but defined the latter's role as a radio access network supplier and set a 35% limit, which triggered protests from operators. Philip Jansen, CEO of British Telecom (BT), warned that the decision to restrict Huawei will cause the operator to suffer losses of about 500 million pounds in the next five years, most of which will come from the elimination of 4G equipment.

He said on BT's third-quarter earnings call, covering the three months to the end of December 2019, that most of the costs would be "front-loaded" and probably spread over the next three years. He also added that clarity on Huawei's role was "very helpful" and that the decision allowed BT to expand EE's 5G network as quickly as possible, despite some unresolved issues with the government's decision.

The company is still assessing the full impact of the government's decision, but the executive noted that BT's immediate action would be to "accelerate some of the (network) rebalancing that we were already doing."

BT's revenue for the quarter was £5.8 billion, down 3% year-on-year after adjusting for accounting standards. This was attributed to regulatory headwinds, a lower consumer base, and performance in the enterprise and global divisions.

The consumer division, which includes EE, performed "solidly", with converged service Halo showing strong momentum.