Toob Expands FTTP Broadband into Three New UK Locations

Hampshire-based network builder and gigabit broadband ISP, toob, which is both rolling out its own full fibre (FTTP) network and also sharing some of CityFibre’s similar infrastructure in parts of South England, has today announced a number of related expansions into Waterlooville (own build) and Chichester & Bognor Regis (City Fibre).

Just to recap. Toob was originally backed by £75m from the Amber Infrastructure Group (here) and “up to” £87.5m from the Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund (here). During 2023 the operator also secured £160m of additional funding (debt financing) from Ares Management‘s Infrastructure Debt strategy (here) – this can be upsized to £300m over time to support growth.

As mentioned above, toob both builds its own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure and holds a complementary network partnership with CityFibre to help expand their coverage (CF also gains reciprocal access to harness toob’s network). In that respect, today’s news technically reflects two separate announcements.

The first is their £8m investment to roll-out to 20,000 premises in the Hampshire town of Waterlooville (construction is due to start within the “coming months“). This seems like a good target since, at present, the only major gigabit-capable network in the town is Virgin Media (VMO2), while Openreach only has a small level of FTTP coverage and doesn’t currently plan to expand much upon that.

The second announcement is their expansion to serve thousands of homes across Chichester and Bognor Regis in West Sussex, albeit in partnership with CityFibre’s existing FTTP network, rather than via their own fibre build.

Nick Parbutt, CEO, toob, said:

“We are delighted that our network is expanding to Waterlooville. 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.”

Dan Ramsay, Chief Marketing Officer at CityFibre, said:

“We’re excited to be working with toob as they extend their services over our networks in Chichester and Bognor Regis. toob are an exciting and innovative partner and it’s great to see them expand their offering to even more homes across the South.”

No matter which side of toob’s network you’re on, 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“.