Iliad’s ‘Free’ service says not authorised to use Huawei gear

PARIS (Reuters) – French telecoms operator Free, a subsidiary of Iliad , has not been authorised by the government to roll out mobile gear manufactured by China’s Huawei [HWT.UL], contrary to local rivals Bouygues Telecom and SFR , its CEO said on Tuesday.

“This breach of equal treatment is problematic”, Thomas Reynaud told a press conference after Iliad published its first-half results.

He added Free was considering turning to Finland’s Nokia for the deployment of its 5G network.

(Reporting by Gwenaelle Barzic, Writing by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Mark Potter)