Finland and Germany are reportedly galvanizing efforts to brick out Huawei from their national infrastructures.

A recent Bloomberg report suggested the German government is considering replacing Huawei equipment through new contracts with Deutsche Telekom (DT) and other telecom operators.

A separate report claimed Finland, the home base of Nokia, is adding to the Huawei pile on by expanding its existing ban on 5G base stations and equipment.

People familiar with the German development said that the deals involved remain under discussion, while suggesting the cost of replacing Huawei equipment in the country would exceed €2 billion (around $2.3 billion). Funds may be procured from defense or infrastructure funds to compensate telecom operators. Aside from DT, these may include the German arms of Vodafone Group and Telefónica S.A. The latter two, plus Huawei, declined to comment to Bloomberg.

DT, meanwhile, refused to “engage in speculation,” while adding Germany’s three network operators signed binding agreements in July last year with the government on how to handle Chinese equipment suppliers, and those contracts remain in effect.

Spokespersons for the German chancellery and finance ministry, meanwhile, directed inquiries to the interior ministry, where a representative said they were unaware of any such plans.

Nokia’s Happy Halloween?

The Finnish development was revealed by a draft for public comment released by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (TRAFICOM). That recommendation was built on TRAFICOM’s ban from January 2021 on equipment from the core network that poses a national security or defence risk. The ruling effectively targeted firms deemed high-risk by the European Commission (EC), such as Huawei and ZTE, without mentioning any by name.

In a statement provided to Bloomberg, Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne stated: "Our goal in Finland is to ensure that we have secure communication networks,” while directing reporters to the original EC ruling.

With the ban extension revealed on October 31st, Halloween may have been an unhappy one for Huawei this year. In contrast, Friday’s news possibly capped off a good week for Finnish giant Nokia.

Fresh from a $1 billion Nvidia investment revealed on Tuesday, the vendor now has a response of sorts to CEO Justin Hotard’s recent call on European officials to remove what he described as “high-risk vendors.”

At a press briefing attended by SDxCentral detailing Nokia's new research campus in Oulu, Finland, the CEO said that Nokia’s share in the Chinese market had fallen below 3%, leading him to question why China’s vendors were free to operate in parts of Europe, “particularly when they do not allow us to play in their markets.”

While countries such as the U.K. have outright banned Huawei equipment, countries like Germany and Finland still permit extensive use of the vendor’s equipment, which appeals to operators both out of cost and technical calibre compared to Western alternatives.

Bloomberg’s sources claimed one example, Vodafone, recently signed a procurement deal for radios and antennas that maintains current levels of Huawei components in its German network.

Vodafone Germany recently announced a large-scale open RAN deployment using Ericsson software and Samsung kit, with no mention of how or if existing Huawei infrastructure will be included.

The first site in Hannover is now in operation as part of the venture, with Wismar in the northeast of Germany planned to become Vodafone’s first fully open RAN-equipped city by early 2026.

SDxCentral has contacted Huawei and Vodafone for comment.