Backed, German Media: Excluding EU country suppliers of 5G from China | China | German Media
Several EU countries without Chinese 5G antennas are lagging behind. The European Commission is pushing to exclude Chinese 5G suppliers, but the Commission's own statistics show that this is obviously damaging to network expansion. The statistical data evaluation report obtained by Golem News Network shows that some countries that formally or informally excluded Chinese 5G suppliers from the expansion of mobile communication networks in the early stage are lagging behind in the digital comparison ranking of 27 EU member states.
In the 5G observation report commissioned by the European Commission, five countries ranked bottom in the 5G network population coverage ranking - precisely the countries that had long excluded Chinese equipment suppliers Huawei and ZTE or strictly restricted local 5G network construction: Estonia and Latvia have 5G network population coverage rates of about 43% and 42%, respectively, far below the average level of around 80% in the European Union. Belgium and Romania are lagging behind, at about 30% and 27% respectively, while Sweden ranks last among all 27 countries with a population coverage rate slightly above 20%.
In October 2020, Sweden became the first EU country to exclude Chinese suppliers from 5G spectrum auctions. Previously, Chinese suppliers were the country's 4G suppliers. The International Commercial Court is still negotiating the legality of this ruling, but the impact on the speed of 5G expansion seems to be evident.
In another ranking by the European Commission, similar results were also observed in countries that had previously and suddenly excluded Chinese suppliers. In the European Commission's Digital Economy and Social Index, Sweden's ranking in the field of connectivity has dropped from second to ninth, Belgium from sixth to 27th, Estonia from 14th to 26th, Latvia from fourth to 20th, and Romania from 11th to 15th.
The negative impact of this exclusion is also evident in the UK. Huawei was initially approved by the UK in January 2020, but a few months later, due to pressure from the Trump government, Huawei was excluded from 5G expansion in the UK. The US internet speed testing and statistics company Ookla warned in February this year that the average download speed in the UK continues to slowly decline towards a relatively low level.
According to market research by Danish telecommunications analyst John Strand, Cyprus is the only EU country to obtain 5G antennas 100% from Chinese suppliers. In the European Commission's 5G observation report, Cyprus ranks first in Europe with 100% 5G population coverage.