Light Reading – Huawei Muscle Puts Ericsson, Nokia on 5G Back Foot in Europe – Sources
Headcount reductions would probably not hinder Ericsson and Nokia when it comes to network rollout because vendors have typically relied on contractors for that work, said Bengt Nordström, the managing director of the Northstream consulting business.
But he agrees that any disadvantage Ericsson and Nokia have in Europe is mainly about resources. “If you think of the strategy work going on at Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia in September and October last year, the plan was not for swap-outs of Huawei in Europe on a massive scale,” he tells Light Reading. “There is no supply or resource preparation to deal with that in a short period of time. No one has planned resource-wise for the big ramp-up of equipment to deal with this problem.”