Cross-Party Security Committee to Probe UK 5G Mobile Networks

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) has launched a new inquiry into UK 5G and fixed broadband telecommunications infrastructure, which in the wake of all the alleged risks from Huawei’s kit will examine the issues of sustaining access to “safe” telecoms technology as a national security issue.

The announcement follows a new Open Letter to the Government (DCMS) from Norman Lamb, Chair of the Science & Technology Committee (STC), which claims to have found “no evidence … to suggest that the complete exclusion of Huawei from the UK’s telecommunications networks would, from a technical point of view, constitute a proportionate response to the potential security threat posed by foreign suppliers.”

Despite this the STC agreed that the existing concerns still warranted the exclusion of Huawei from the core of UK telecoms networks (but not non-core) and that most mobile operators had broadly already taken voluntary action to support this, although we suspect that the same may not be true across all fixed line providers.

As it stands the Government has yet to make a final decision about the Chinese company, which is despite PM Theresa May‘s widely reported support for a move to only ban their kit from the core of UK networks (here). You can read all of the context for why this is happening here and here.

Meanwhile the JCNSS committed is seeking written evidence on a number of areas (see below), which must be submitted by 13th September 2019.

Scope of the JCNSS Inquiry

* The challenges for the UK telecoms industry in a global market;

* The opportunities and risks involved in purchasing equipment and services for the UK telecoms sector from foreign suppliers;

* The effectiveness of the Government’s past and current support to the UK telecoms industry and innovation within the sector;

* Areas of strength and innovation in the UK telecoms industry;

* The scope and implementation of key documents including, but not limited to, the 2015 National Security Strategy and the 2017 Industrial Strategy;

* The potential role of regulation and legislation including, but not limited to, the 2018 White Paper on National Security and Investment;

* The roles and responsibilities of the National Security Council and relevant Government departments and agencies;

* The extent to which policy-making in this area draws on cross-government science, technology and cyber security expertise;

* How the UK’s approach compares with that of allies and partners such as France, Germany, the US, Canada and Australia;

* The potential for international cooperation with like-minded countries and multinational organisations in sustaining key industrial sectors, such as telecoms.

The biggest difficulty for this sort of inquiry is that the most sensitive national security details aren’t ever likely to be exposed in public. Such issues are a matter for the national security and intelligence agencies (secret), which is virtually impossible for ordinary folk to judge. We wouldn’t be so bold as to assume we know better than they do.

On the flip side telecoms operators have long made use of Huawei’s equipment within their networks, not least because it tends to represent a good mix of quality and affordability. Admittedly the firm has had a fair few public security scares of late too (poorly patched vulnerabilities in firmware etc.), but then so too have other big firms like Cisco.

For mobile operators the biggest problem with a total ban from 5G networks would be that you can’t do 4G without 5G (dual-purpose hardware etc.), thus they’d face the massive cost of needing to re-do their networks and the likely delays that would cause for the 5G rollout.

On the other hand it’s not like we haven’t seen plenty of warning signals from security committees over the past few years (these are not new concerns).