Fujitsu is no longer bidding for the right to roll out superfast broadband in Cumbria, as a part of BDUK nation-wide scheme.
The reason? Not a profitable idea.
According to Fujitsu’s calculations, the Government’s £40m worth of funds was not enough to make a profit within the area, therefore the Japanese tech giant felt inclined to say no.
The FT reported Fujitsu head, Duncan Tait, as saying:
“We withdrew from Cumbria because we cannot currently see a clear path towards a mass market that is required to attract leading retail service providers.
“We continue to monitor the market place and see where we can get this to make sense. We will look at each on its own merits and see if there is a way to make it work and get to the scale we need for our anchor tenants.”
This happened shortly after Cumbria rejected both bids from BT and Fujitsu as these didn’t fulfil the requirements of the council entirely. This means that BT is the only bidder that can bring superfast broadband to the area. Broadbandwatcher eagerly waits for the telecom giant’s revised bid.
As a quick reminder, the BDUK office pledged to provide superfast broadband (25Mbps or more) to 90 per cent of residents and businesses within every county, leaving the remaining 10 per cent to make use of basic broadband of at least 2Mbps by 2015.
