Australian operator TPG Telecom has announced that, “due to factors outside TPG control, it has decided to cease the rollout of its mobile network in Australia”. Since the announcement of its mobile network strategy in April 2017, TPG has been designing and implementing a mobile network based mainly on small cell architecture. The principal equipment vendor selected for use in the network was Huawei. The Chinese vendor was selected to power TPG’s upgrade to 5G. However, in light of the Australian government’s announcement in August 2018 that it would prohibit the use of Huawei equipment in 5G networks, that upgrade path has now been blocked, TPG said.
Since that announcement, TPG has continued to deploy equipment which it had ordered from Huawei prior to the government’s ban, but TPG reports it has now reached the decision point for whether to place orders for additional Huawei equipment. TPG has reached the conclusion that “it does not make sense to invest further shareholder funds in a network that cannot be upgraded to 5G”.
TPG reports it has already invested around AUD 100 million in its network rollout. Prior to August 2018, it had acquired equipment of 1,500 sites and has fully or partially completed the implementation of around 900 small cell sites. Additional capex of AUD 30 million is already committed, TPG added.
