On Friday, Telenor stated, it has selected Ericsson for creating its fifth-generation (5G) telecoms network in Norway.

The development comes in the wake of intelligence reports from across the globe that China’s Huawei could potentially pose an espionage threat. Recently Norwegian security services had also warned against espionage threats arising from Huawei.

“Ericsson will modernize and build Telenor’s 5G radio access network (RAN),” said Telenor in a statement.

It went on to add, “The modernization will take 4-5 years. Due to this, Telenor will use equipment from existing RAN vendor Huawei to maintain the 4G network and also upgrade to 5G coverage in selected areas of Norway”.

Telenor is Norway’s biggest telecoms provider. It is also active in the rest of the Nordic region as well as five Asian countries, and serves nearly 183 million customers.

Huawei has responded to allegations of espionage by rejecting such claims.

In recent months China had re-routed data through its own servers. China’s National Intelligence Law, which came into effect in July 2017, and Article 7 of the law, creates an “obligation [for] Chinese citizens to support national intelligence work.”