Full Fibre Broadband Operator Toob Opens New Office in England

Hampshire-based network builder and gigabit broadband ISP toob, which is currently deploying a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the South of England (e.g. Southampton, Camberley, Aldershot, Farnborough, Fareham and Gosport), has opened a new office in Stockton-on-Tees to support their expansion.

The operator, which was originally backed by £75m from the Amber Infrastructure Group (here) and “up to” £87.5m from the Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund (here), recently secured £160m of additional funding (debt financing) from Ares Management‘s Infrastructure Debt strategy (here) – this can be upsized up to £300m over time to support future growth.

The opening of its new office was welcomed by Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen who said he was excited to see the job opportunities this investment will create. As the new office will be a centre for customer service and sales, toob’s decision to extend to the area was said to be motivated by the local skill base across the region.

The announcement does, however, come shortly after toob appeared to change its strategy to focus more on growing customer take-up than on expanding their network coverage (here). But the exact impact of this change on their build targets is still unclear.

Nick Parbutt, CEO of toob, said:

“It was an honour to meet with Mayor Ben Houchen to mark the opening of our new office in Stockton-on-Tees. toob has been built on our belief that access to fast, reliable broadband at an affordable price is a necessity in today’s increasingly digital world. Our values have affordability and customer care at their core, and our customer focus has driven the expansion to Stockton-on-Tees, which is where some of toob’s customer service will take place.”

Customers of the service typically pay just £25 per month on an 18-month term for their 900Mbps (symmetric speed) package (£29 thereafter), which includes a router, unlimited usage, free installation and a pledge of “no in-contract price rises“. The operator also sells into a few parts of CityFibre’s rival FTTP network (that agreement also gives CityFibre some reciprocal access).