Fujitsu pulls out of Cumbria and North Yorks broadband schemes

Fujitsu has pulled out of the race to land super-fast broadband contracts in Cumbria and North Yorkshire.

The Japanese telecoms giant was one of only two firms picked by the government to compete for agreements under the Broadband Delivery UK framework, along with BT.

According to the Financial Times (FT), the company has been forced to ditch its application for the North Yorkshire contract after learning that BT is set to be appointed as the preferred provider and has also withdrawn from the Cumbrian bid.

Both Fujitsu and BT recently had their initial tenders for the Cumbrian contract rejected by the county council, although a Fujitsu spokesman insisted at the time that the firm remained focused on landing that and other next-generation broadband agreements.

However, Fujitsu's chief executive Duncan Tait told the FT that it has scrapped the Cumbria bid as it failed to see a clear path to the mass market, which is required to attract the major internet service providers.

"We will look at each [project] 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," he explained.