The UK government’s decision to ban Huawei entirely from its operators’ 5G networks, and to force them to remove any equipment already deployed, has thrown a harsh light on the thorny issue of rip-and-replace procedures in the mobile industry. In the run-up to the new policy announcement, Philip Jansen, CEO of incumbent telco BT, said his firm was already set to spend £500m ($630m) to remove Huawei from the core network of its EE subsidiary, and to reduce Huawei’s presence in its access networks to 35% (the cap set, under an earlier UK policy decision, on the Chinese vendor’s share of 5G or fiber infrastructure). To replace Huawei completely in 5G would increase that financial burden by adding up to…