Broadband ISP toob Increases FTTP Price for New UK Customers UPDATE
Hampshire-based network builder and gigabit broadband ISP, toob, which is deploying its own full fibre (FTTP) network and also sharing some of CityFibre’s infrastructure in parts of South England, has today announced its first price increase from £25 to £29 per month on an 18-month term for their one and only 900Mbps package.
The price increase may seem significant, although it’s worth remembering that this is for a 900Mbps package with free installation (i.e. £29 is still cheaper than most similar plans). The ISP has maintained their existing £25 price point for five long years, which is despite all of the recent cost increases that providers have been having to contend with.
Finally, toob’s packages have long been sold alongside a pledge of “no in-contract price rises“, which the provider says they intend to honour for existing customers.
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Nick Parbutt, CEO of toob, said:
“Like anyone at present, toob is not immune to rising costs and we are having to adjust the price of our 900 Mbps service on new contracts from mid-May. We believe in making the benefits of full-fibre broadband available to all through one simple proposition, and at £29 for 900 Mbps, toob’s proposition continues with this approach by remaining more competitive than any of the major providers in the UK.
What’s more, when you enter a contract with a broadband provider, we believe the price should remain the same for the life of the contract, and toob’s customers can continue to be reassured that there will be no mid-contract price hikes.”
In addition, £29 is also the existing post-contract price of the current £25 offer (at present the original £25 deal is still showing on toob’s website, until next month), although at the time of writing we’re not sure if the post-contract price for new customers will thus be higher than £29 or remain at that level (checking this now).
UPDATE 11:35am
Toob has confirmed to us that the new post-contract price will indeed also rise, which means that after the first 18-month term you’ll go from paying £29 per month (new price) to £33 per month. But to get around that, customers will be able to recommit to a new contract.
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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Hefty rise of RPI+11.5%
But it doesn’t apply to those in-contract. Those out of contract are free to leave (or not sign up) and go for a better deal elsewhere, although finding such a deal could be challenging.
I guess they might look to introduce a slower (and cheaper) tariff for price-sensitive customers.
Errr…. no. What is RPI over the last five years during which they have not increased their prices? Relative to RPI this is cheaper than five years ago. According to https://erikasgrig.com/calculators/rpi-calculator-inflation/ £25 five years ago equates to £33.42 today.
There’s no pleasing some people.
CPI+12.6%
@Fb. You’re not strong on basic arithmetic, percentages etc.
You’re both right. This increase is as FibreBubble stated, the annual rate of increase averaged over the last 5 years is as you stated. It’s a big, abrupt increase for those that joined relatively recently, it’ll feel far lower for those that’ve been with them since the beginning and perception is what matters really.
> increase for those that joined relatively recently
Those that joined relatively recently will still be within their 18 month contract, where the price doesn’t change…
It’s actually below BOTH CPI and RPI if you look at it across the last 5 years (they have not increased the price in that time)
Hence ‘relatively recently’ compared with the previously mentioned that’ve been with them since the beginning.
I’m surprised they’ve managed to keep the price the same over the past few years. We’re hopefully getting them into our MDU in the next year or so and even at £29 they’re a good deal cheaper than BT.
Why “UK” in the headline? Do they have customers in other countries?
Keeps SEO happy.
Dame reason that most newspapers repeat the headline content in the synopsis, and in the alt text for the primary image.
Content is not just written for you to read, it is written to be found and categorised.
My usual comment on toob …. I’d bite their hand off at £25, £29 or £33 per month given what I was paying on Virgin for a slower, non-symmetrical service. But they aren’t coming to Whiteley. Come on toob I’m just behind the pub (from which you can see Onestream call centre) which isn’t that far from Locks Heath and Parkgate that you are cabling up currently and isn’t shown on your coverage map!
Can’t wait to get off virgin and get toob or any city fibre provider, even though my virgin connection is currently free of charge due to appealing treatment, I’d rather pay for the faster upload.
Your treatment is appealing? Sounds nice 🙂
Must be the only one getting appealing treatment from Virgin.
Yep so darned nice I can’t bear to stay with them
In order to get anything remotely close to a internet connection I had to bend over and give VMB hundreds a month – £33 is nice – but not sustainable let’s be honest. £90-£100 is more like the right price.
YouFibre selling 8G for £99.99 pretty profitably would disagree with you.
Ha, interesting timing. According to the roadworks map, they are scheduled to dig up my road tomorrow.
£25 or even £29 was never going to be sustainable in the long run. Building networks is expensive but the cost of running a retail ISP shouldn’t be overlooked. I;d argue that £29 (rising to £33) is still too low to run a long term sustainable business than can afford to invest in a quality service.
They ain’t getting £29 a month as VAT is making up nearly a fiver of that.
Depends on how much they’re investing in civils and other capital-intensive stuff (and the return on that capital which they’re expected to generate). If they have low overheads then it could be sustainable.
Carrier grade NAT no ty with their static IP they are now expensive.
Toob offer a very good service, I have been with them since June 23 and also took the static IP which is +£8, so £33 for a 900/900 XGS-PON service with a static IP, that is hard to beat.
Virgin is not available in my street, which from reading the feedback on them is a blessing in disguise, and the best BT offer here is g.fast, which is outrageously expensive with few ISP choices, no plans for FTTP rollout at all from BT.