Kent-based broadband ISP Trooli, which aims to deploy a full fibre (FTTP) network to 1 million UK premises by the end of 2024 (in August they reported 275,000 completed), has attracted fresh rumours of a possible sale after they reportedly appointed a business sale and restructuring specialist, David Duggins, to their Board.
At present the provider is known to be building across a sizeable number of towns and villages in Derbyshire, Kent, East Sussex, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire and Suffolk. As part of this, Trooli were initially aiming to reach 400,000 premises across around 300 towns and villages by Dec 2022, but we’ve so far been unable to confirm how close they got to this.
The project was initially supported by an investment of €30m from the Connecting Europe Broadband Fund (Cube Infrastructure Managers) and £5m from NatWest, which was given a huge boost in 2021 by a new £67.5m debt facility agreement via a consortium of commercial lenders, facilitated by the CEBF (here).
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However, in order to continue their build, they’ll require much more funding, which is why we started to hear talk of efforts to raise another £200m at the start of 2022 (here). In theory, the provider could have also used this to extend their medium-term build target to 2.1 million UK premises by the end of 2024. But so far there have been no big funding announcements, and a full year has now passed since that report.
We asked Trooli about all this last month and a spokesperson confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they were in “various exciting conversations about our future growth“, before adding that such talks were naturally confidential. But we were also told that they are planning to share more about their growth plans for 2023 and beyond “in the near future“.
Speculation over Trooli’s future has now accelerated, again, after TelcoTitans reported that they’d hired former EY Restructuring Partner David Duggins to the Board. A weekend report on The Sunday Times (paywall) further claimed that Trooli were still looking for an equity investor to fund their fibre rollout (nothing new), but were also “sounding out interest from rivals“.
In the meantime, Trooli will no doubt be feeling the same strains as many other network operators right now, not least in terms of rising build costs (suppliers, energy, inflation etc.) and growing pressures from investors to deliver viable take-up. The ISP also lacks a cheaper entry-level broadband tier, which may hinder their appeal a bit if they lack an option that can peel customers away from budget FTTC tiers.
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On top of that, they also exist in an aggressively competitive market. Only last week the CEO of BT Group, Philip Jansen, warned that AltNet builds would “end in tears” (some definitely will – they won’t all survive), before adding that “there is only going to be one national network“. Talk that should alarm Ofcom and politicians, but which also seems to ignore the existence of Virgin Media’s (VMO2) national network.
Overall, Trooli has managed to cover a lot of premises, given its currently limited level of investment (we assume a PIA heavy build). But satisfying investors and attracting new funding in today’s market is starting to get a lot harder, although Trooli are arguably in a better position than some AltNets to achieve a positive outcome. But whether that involves consolidation, an equity sale, or something else, remains to be seen.
They have a bad trustpilot of 4.0 with only 600 reviews. That suggests abysmal takeup which is expected considering their high prices. TP reviews are usually 10-20% of the total amount of customers
You’re suggesting that at least 1 in 10 customers, on average, leave Trustpilot reviews? Citation needed.
Obviously I won’t reveal my sources but generally when there’s an announcement on customer numbers, it goes in line with the number of TP reviews
Even if it was only 1 in 20 leaving reviews, it’s still a very low takeup number. You can compare them with zzoomm and brsk, who have about 1/3 of the claimed homes passed but double the amount of reviews. The takeup reflects the better price offering
Netomnia likely to go after this to increase their Kent share? Just my thoughts after reading.
Wouldn’t be a bad move, besides a tiny bit of Gigaclear and random Hyperoptic mdu and some city fibre in Rainham, the only altnets there are Netomnia and Trooli. It would mean they would have almost all of Kent covered
There will be two or three nation wide altnets in 5 years. Don’t be surprised if the biggest ones having 200k customers out of 2m premises passed by in total will collapse. By saying altnets I am thinking of these having and managing their own network not virtual isps.
I always kinda assumed VMO2 would try to gobble up some of the FTTP altnets.
They just didn’t seem to be in any rush to push out their FTTP solutions. But could just be waiting to purchase some regional entities, if the government makes the tax incentives work for the altnets.
100%
We’ll be going from “The altnets are coming” to “The alnets are going”.
It’s happened before and it’s happening again.
After putting the network in-place around my way a few months ago (not sure it’s actually live) they suddenly went very quiet.
Then out of the blue they phoned me yesterday trying get me to sign up – I wonder if they are trying to inflate their sign-ups prior to being bought? That said, there was a 16-week lead time on getting connected, so I’m still not convinced they’ve switched our area on yet. I also doubt the recent premises passed figures for them.
My theory is they are currently cash strapped and need a buyer to continue building out their network.
Lol almost 4 months later. That most likely means your area isn’t actually done yet and if you sign up there is another chance that you’ll wait more than 4 months because of build delays
I signed up in July 2022. Still waiting and If I where starting from scratch I could not order. The Kit has been on our poles since May 2022.
They have upgraded me a free upgrade to the next package up for the duration of my contract when they finally finish the network build here. I hope it’s soon.
Still no BT FTTP until 2026
I think they should have a cheeper tier for sure maybe a 100/30-50Mbit tier to beat FTTC handily.
Realistically these Price actually look good vs BT my current contract currently paying 38.24 for 50/15 when the price rises kick in thats much closer to the 48 quid price point with much slower speeds!! The Price Rises may actually be a blessing to Trooli or there buyers, if they can keep the current prices.
From what I’m understanding, it’s the slow take-up that’s really hurting the alnets.
I don’t believe the majority of the general public really need or are ready to start paying for high speed fibre optic connections.
That, and half of them think they’ve already got fibre because they’ve got FTTC.
@Gary, yep that is correct, a lot of people I speak to think they already have fibre.
I like competition, but sometimes there can be too much.
Maybe these alt nets should concentrate in one place at a time and not build in multiple places before they get the customers.
This is my main worry about going with a Altnet and a 24-month contract, I have already been with a provider that decided to give up
You’re welcome
I’m not surprised, my area Sandhurst both Trooli & Swish decided to rollout despite Zzoomm finished building and had a live network with customers.
Only seen 1 Trooli customer. It’s now going to get worse for the altnets here because Openreach are accepting orders for FTTP so all the big boys like BT, Sky and TalkTalk will be gobbling up potential customers.
Vodafone should buy all the altnets and merge into one company.
You are dreaming about duopoly.
I think that they must be in trouble. They came round our area and installed coils of fibre on most of the telegraph poles about 6 months ago. However they have yet to do anything with this and all of the local postcodes that before Christmas said the service was available are now showing as “Sorry No Trooli Here!”
They are also very expensive. They are charging £35 per month for the first 18 months, going up to £50 for a 300/100 Mb service.
I am paying £58 300/300 (£6 for static IP) in OFNL and waiting for OR to pull cables so Netomnia could offer me 500/500 for £45 (with static IP)
OFNL does not allow others in their network, atleast that’s what their guy told me. This was many months ago, has it changed?
I don’t care about OFNL, OR is planning to build their network, as far as I can see there are OR manholes already not far away. Netomnia claim that my postcode is included in their rollout so probably just waiting for OR.
OFNL sites have their own network and they use PIA up to the edge of their site then duct. It is highly unlikely Openreach would decide to build to the site as they would need to install all new infrastructure such as duct and boxes as they are not allowed to use another providers infrastructure.
Netomnia does not know precisely where OR is rolling out. It is possible that you are in a currently unplanned area
Unfortunately OFNL have a monopoly in their own areas. OR is dodging them the same way OR is dodging their own DIG areas
They started building in my area of Hampshire Jan last year. I was quite excited as they announced availability in 6 to 9 months. 13 months later I’m still waiting. Oddly I still see the odd Trooli van so they haven’t given up but still unable to order. It does seem to be a very basic build though. Not seen any cambers created (yet) – just fiber through ducting. Giganet who started 4 months later have made lots of chambers through the estate. Saying that they are also running late (also stated October). I’m so desperate to get off long line FTTC I’d take either!
I have one relative on them very happy as OR couldn’t even offer FTTC and the usual FTTP sometime between now and 2026 (seriously, what is the point in this?) – No Virgin as well
Another however lives at let’s say number 9, number 5 can get Trooli and not a single other person on that row of odd number houses can – it’s truly baffling. They have no intentions of supplying/sorting this as well, despite us saying we will go with you the second we can if you would let us.
For the price they charge though – £35 P/M for 300 as soon as a cheaper alt net comes in or OR bother to roll out FTTP they lose instantly.
I wish them well as they gave my town FTTP (well some of it completely ignoring whole roads it seems), but long term they have no chance – will be gobbled up soon enough
Currently paying zen £48 for 900/110 fttp. Netomnia are now live on my street (took 13 months) offering 3 months at £1 than 29.99 per month for 1gb/1gb plus £5 pcm for static IP. I would take it if I wasn’t tied to zen for a while.
In our little village the rollout is ‘complete’ – 124 properties ready to connect, 9 are connected so 7.25% take up rate
As per the article, it looks like the company has struggled to raise new money, since the announcement of the capital raise was made more than 1 year ago. As with all or most altnets, it is most probably the case it will still be making EBITDA losses with significant capex required. I suspect both CEBF and the banks will be in a precarious situation. It has always been the case that it is difficult to make any money on building networks from scratch. The level of penetration and ARPU required is very difficult, plus you need scale to breakeven on opex. I suspect banks will struggle to be made whole in this situation and will lose a lot of money. The real winners here are the investors who buy these assets at a steep discount to cost in consolidation.
The fttp construction roll out reminds me a little of the dotCom bubble bursting back in the early 2000s, especially with the ridiculous sums of money spent on securing 3G licenses.
I’m sure they are a number of canny AltNets/investors/private equity groups/banks etc. who are holding onto their money and waiting for distressed assets to come onto the market to bolt on to their existing networks or pick up built working assets on the cheap.
I suspect that by the end of this decade they’ll have been quite a substantial amount of consolidation to a number of large regional players i.e. rural and urban. Perhaps we may see a large national emerge. Who those companies will be is anybodies guess.
They’ve rolled out where I am in Suffolk, a few months after OR did their own FTTP. Based on what I can see I’m not sure who’s taken it up, there are plenty of Openreach boxes popping up on people’s walls (especially in the bits that were stuck on ADSL prior) but not so much evidence of trooli.
Given the whinging about FTTC cabinets back in the day I’m surprised they got their OLT approved – it’s a cabinet that’s probably twice as wide/deep as the big OR FTTC ones. It’s not in a bad location, more NIMBYist style complaints than anything.
Of course in the major town itself it’s a Openreach vs Cityfibre vs Virgin fight.
They’ve rolled out on our estate, but have only covered the roads with telegraph poles which is maybe 75% of the roads. There’s a whole section in the middle where the phone lines run in ducts that they’ve simply skipped, surrounded by Trooli-enabled postcodes and they seemingly have no plans to finish them. Hopefully openreach turn up to fill in the gaps at some point.
Furious doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“The ISP also lacks a cheaper entry-level broadband tier”
That is it in a nutshell. The majority of people don’t want or need ultrafast broadband, and just want to pay as little as possible. You need to get significant numbers of customers on your network to have any chance of recouping the investment.
The business case behind big altnets like Cityfibre is to undercut Openreach at wholesale. If this means Vodafone can sell Cityfibre FTTP for 50p a month cheaper than Openreach FTTC, then a substantial number of people will move. The fact that they are a well-known brand helps too. Openreach’s 40/10 pricing is regulated, so they can’t respond.
Trooli could try to limit themselves to areas with poor or non-existent FTTC, but (a) they are generally less urban and hence more expensive to build, and (b) within 3 or 4 years Openreach will have built there anyway – at which point people will switch to the lower-priced option.
Well, we’re with Trooli on the South Coast. Went live earlier than they predicted, extremely competent installation and it’s running fine. It’s particularly nice to to have a fast, dependable and symmetrical service unlike FTTC. They throw in a Technicolor modem as well which while a bit idiosyncratic and ‘controlled’ by them can be reconfigured perfectly well for our needs. I only had to call support once and they were responsive and knowledgeable. Considering I suffered a year of rank incompetence and poor service that went down pretty much daily at the hands of Openwretch it’s blissful. Too good to last.
We have Trooli in our village in Kent, however some of the street have free access to trooli, and some have to pay towards the civil works required to get from the nearest chamber to the house. (My cable is D.I.G…direct in ground) so I have been told I have to pay nearly £600.00 towards the civils costs. This is one of the reasons for low take up in the village, especially when other ISPs do not charge for this.