ISP toob Starts FTTP Broadband Rollout in First Surrey UK Towns

Portsmouth-based UK ISP toob has today started to deploy their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to homes and business in the Surrey (England) towns of Camberley and Frimley, which is expected to cover more than 20,000 premises and cost £8m to complete.

Until now the new operator, which was originally setup by a group of Vodafone’s former directors and is being supported by an initial investment of £75m (here), has largely focused on their roll-out to cover 100,000 premises in the Hampshire city of Southampton. But the provider has also expressed an ambition to cover over 1 million premises across the South of England in the future.

In keeping with the above, toob recently (November 2020) “commenced detailed planning” to deploy across 10 more towns in Hampshire and Surrey (here). At the time the provider stated that build activity for this phase was due to start in the Spring of 2021, with the first customers then being connected by the end of Summer 2021.

The good news is that they’ve now begun this work in Camberley and Frimley, with Aldershot, Ash, Farnborough, Green, Guildford, Mytchett, West Byfleet and Woking set to follow in due course. The rollout to 20,000 premises across Camberley and Frimley is currently planned to complete by the end of 2022.

Nick Parbutt, toob’s CEO, said:

“We have always viewed the deployment of full-fibre networks as an economic and social necessity and the current challenges we are facing only reinforces this belief. With the announcement of our next locations, I am delighted that we can bring the benefits of full-fibre broadband to more families, businesses and communities.

This is a very exciting time for toob and we’re delighted to be getting started in Camberley and Frimley. We know there is a real need for affordable, reliable, hyperspeed internet and we are quickly filling that gap in the market with thousands of existing happy customers.”

Once again toob’s main gigabit speed competitor in the two towns will be Virgin Media, which already covers most of the area, but the area is fairly dense (urban) and so should be able to support the additional competition from a new rival. Locals in the towns are now being invited to register their interest in taking the service via toob’s website.

Customers can expect to pay just £25 per month to access toob’s top unlimited 900Mbps+ (average) symmetric speed service on an 18-month minimum contract term (£29 thereafter), which is accompanied by free installation, a wireless router and unlimited usage. The pricing remains incredibly cheap for a commercial FTTP ISP and that will be intentional to help attract strong take-up (i.e. pulling customers away from rivals).