The Australian Federal Government’s ban on using Huawei equipment has left TPG’s 4G network plans hanging.
TPG was keen on becoming the Australia’s fourth largest mobile career, sinking $1.9 billion on setting up its own 4G network. The service was switched on in 2018, and was supposed to cover 80% of the country’s population.
With only a few metro areas in Sydney currently covered, the rest of the build has been abandoned, with TPG citing the August 2018 ban on Huawei as the main reason.
Huawei has been TPG’s sole provider of small cell boxes needed for mobile services. The Federal Government’s ban on the Chinese manufacturer’s equipment, however, has thrown a spanner in the works, with TPG claiming it “does not make commercial sense” to carry on pouring money into building the network.
“A key reason for the selection of the vendor and the design of TPG’s network was that there was a simple upgrade path to 5G, using Huawei equipment,” the telco announced in a statement.
