Europe's major telcos and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. are meeting in Spain this week to discuss 5G use cases and network development, as the industry awaits the European Union's risk assessment of the Chinese firm.
Executives from Vodafone Group PLC, British Telecom, Telefónica SA, and Huawei will take to the stage at the 5G Core Summit in Madrid, Spain, on Sept. 24-25.
The network technology's key stakeholders will also discuss cybersecurity and regulation alongside analysts and representatives from industry bodies.
The summit is taking place one week before the European Union's member states, the European Commission and the EU Agency for Cybersecurity are due to publish an EU-wide report on the 5G threat landscape.
The U.S. continues to pile pressure on its European allies to follow its lead in banning Huawei, which has repeatedly denied accusations of state-sanctioned espionage. This spring the U.N. said the White House's concerns over 5G equipment built using Huawei equipment are politically motivated, urging nations to draw their own conclusions based on their own research.
The U.K. government has said its own telecoms supply chain review will be published "soon." Originally due in spring, its decision on whether to allow Huawei to participate in local 5G rollouts is believed to have been delayed amid ongoing Brexit negotiations and a change in Prime Minister.
Huawei is deeply embedded in the country's 4G network, which 5G is built on. BT, which is removing Huawei from its core network, has said a complete ban on the firm could take five years to implement.
Despite calling for strengthened 5G security, both France and Germany have also stopped short of singling out any individual vendor.
Earlier this month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence held up the country's deal with Poland as the standard the wider region should adopt. The partnership will see the two sides collaborate to stamp out security threats to the communications network.
Huawei is sending two representatives charged with managing its core 5G output to the summit in the Spanish capital. The company's CEO Ren Zhengfei recently said it would offer its 5G technology to a western buyer including patents, licenses, codes, technical blueprints and production knowledge.
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Europe |
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| Sept. 24-25 |
Key 5G stakeholders including telcos and equipment makers are heading to the Spanish capital of Madrid to talk security, infrastructure and oversight as part of the 5G Core Summit. |
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| Sept. 26 |
The EU Agency for network and information security is holding a cybersecurity workshop in Warsaw in cooperation with the Polish National Research Institution to discuss innovative approaches to security. | ||
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Sept. 27 |
Germany will discuss a draft bill on e-health that says patients should be prescribed health apps by their doctors, allowing them to attend online consultations and access their healthcare data. | |
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