Although the NCSC statement did not mention the relevant US ban, the statement mentioned that ZTE received a US$1.2 billion fine in the United States in March after it violated the ban.
According to a report in the Financial Times, NCSC technical director Ian Levy stated in a letter sent to network operators: 'Using ZTE's equipment and services in existing telecommunication infrastructure will have a Constitutes risk, which cannot be effectively and practically mitigated.
The NCSC added in its brief statement issued on its website that the agency 'responsible for emphasizing the potential risks to UK national security and providing advice based on our technical capabilities.'
NCSC's wording indicated that they mainly aimed at ZTE's infrastructure equipment instead of smartphones. According to IHS Markit's statistics, ZTE is the fourth largest telecommunications equipment supplier in the world, and its market share is less than half that of Huawei. Huawei is the UK's Large-scale infrastructure equipment suppliers, this seems to make the NCSC quite a headache.
In the past few months, ZTE and Huawei have been listed as potential security threats by US security consultants. Huawei's agreement with AT&T and Verizon has obviously been affected.
ZTE has not responded to this news.