Marc Allera, CEO of BT consumer brands, at the launch of the new EE 5G service confirmed that Huawei devices have been put "on pause" in response to the recent stand-off between the Chinese company and the US Government, significantly affecting Huawei's relationship with Google.

Responding to a question about whether the banning of Huawei from trade with US companies presented a problem, Allera replied "we've put the Huawei devices on pause until we've got a little more information on that."

"Until we get the information and the confidence … that these devices will be supported for the lifetime for our customers … we've put those devices on pause." 

Previously in the presentation of the 5G devices that would be offered by EE, phones from OnePlus, Samsung, Oppo and LG were displayed - but the previously-announced Huawei Mate X and Huawei Mate 20 X 5G were absent from the list.

This pausing of the availability of Huawei's devices will be a further blow to the company that sees itself frozen out of various segments of the market following its addition to the US Entity List on 16 May.

There's perhaps some reassurance though. With Allera saying that those devices are "on pause", it's likely that if the US changes its position on Huawei then these devices could quickly be rolled out.

As for the network itself, EE confirmed that some parts of the current 5G network build on existing 4G components from Huawei, but it had never been the plan to have Huawei 5G hardware at the core of the new 5G network.