The federal government's ban on Chinese involvement in the construction of Australia's new 5G network fails to address the presence of companies such as Huawei in existing infrastructure that the new technology will rely on for years.

Industry insiders claim this disconnect between the government's policy and the technical realities of the 5G rollout is causing widespread confusion among telecommunications companies trying to plan their investment.

Scott Morrison has banned Huawei and ZTE from participating in the building of the 5G mobile network. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen, AP

The claims come as experts have also attacked the total ban on companies such as Huawei as misconceived, given parts of the 5G build could be quarantined from outside interference.

The next generation of mobile networks, 5G, is expected to initially build onto pre-existing 4G and 4G LTE technology, with some telcos looking to use new antennas attached to these legacy networks in the early stages of a 5G rollout. Vodafone and Optus both use Huawei equipment as part of their current 4G mobile networks, while Telstra's network is largely built with equipment from Swedish company Ericsson.