Bulldog pulls out of home broadband

Bulldog, the broadband division of Cable & Wireless (C&W), is abandoning the fiercely competitive home and small-business broadband market to focus on offering wholesale services to other providers.

C & W said in a statement that Bulldog is to 'cease any further proactive sales, marketing or advertising activities to acquire new residential and small-business customers'.

As a result, Bulldog will shed 150 jobs, mainly in sales and marketing. Existing customers will receive 'ongoing customer care and the launch of new innovative services,' the company said.

C&W acquired Bulldog in 2004 and pumped in hundreds of millions of pounds to help it challenge BT but, to date, Bulldog has failed to hit its targets.

The company says the latest move will not affect its plans for local loop unbundling – the installation of its own equipment in BT exchanges so that it can provide services directly to customers.

The company has a target of 800 fully unbundled exchanges by September when it intends to offer the local loop capability for corporate customer access.

So far, the number of unbundled exchanges stands at over 400.

John Pluthero, group managing director UK, said: 'As the market leader in full local loop unbundling, we have been looking at the best way to maximise the return on our investment. We believe that a wholesaling approach to the consumer and SME market is the best way to optimise our return from our unique local loop network capability.'