Full Fibre UK ISP Trooli Reportedly Preps GBP200m Equity Sale UPDATE
A new report claims that broadband ISP Trooli, which holds an ambition to reach a “minimum” of 1 million UK premises with their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network by the end of 2024, is close to launching an equity sale process that could raise £200m and significantly accelerate their rollout target.
The alternative network provider, which employs c.200 staff (this is will soon double) and currently covers over 170,000 premises across parts of Kent, East Sussex, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Suffolk in England, expects to reach 400,000 premises by December 2022 (across c.300 towns and villages), before reaching their current goal a few years later.
So far the initial funding for this effort has included €30m from the Connecting Europe Broadband Fund (Cube Infrastructure Managers) and £5m from NatWest, which was given a huge boost last year by a new £67.5m debt facility agreement via a consortium of commercial lenders, facilitated by the CEBF (here).
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However, a recent report in TMT Finance (paywall) claims that Lazard is preparing to begin a new equity sale process (possibly by the end of Q1 2022), which could secure a further £200m for the operator. The extra funding would significantly accelerate their rollout to cover 2.1 million UK premises by the same date of 2024.
The provider, which tends to focus more on semi-rural and rural communities and towns, is also looking to extend their future network reach outside the South East of England, although it’s unclear precisely where they intend to target next. We have asked Trooli for a comment and will report back if they respond.
UPDATE 22nd Feb 2022
Trooli has confirmed that the report is accurate, but they have no official comment to make.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Mark – I sent you details of them installing in Hythe Hampshire just after Christmas. They have been busy installing the main cabling all this month and are covering a slightly larger area than original listed too – based on one.network digging they are covering Fawley and surrounding areas/hamlets too. Based on current rate of install I should be able to order by Summer which will be nice (on a long line FTTC setup with no alternatives included 4G)
Hopefully they might stretch as far as Totton. Waiting for Toob to get their act together over this side of the water from Southampton so a bit more competition, and an alternative to VM, would be very welcome.
NeilB,
I’ve not seen it on their roll out plans on their website but you never know. However you are at least on openreach’s FTTP rollout plan (as is Marchwood and Fawley). Hythe/Dibden/Dibden Purlieu is not and doesn’t have VM either so it’ll be nice to finally have an option other than FTTC (of which I’ve got one of longest lines in the area).
(I did ask Toob if they had plans for our side of Southampton water and while they haven’t ruled it out its obvious they are chasing cities only currently so I wouldn’t hold your breath. Maybe some altnet merges will help in that regard?)
Toob are coming to Totton as their planning application was accepted by NFDC (Planning number 21/10971).
I reached out to them but they would not say when they would start the build. I keep popping over there to see if the cab has arrived but nothing yet 🙁
Trooli are burning money like it is going out of fashion.