Broadband network toob cuts UK jobs after debt deal and outsources support
Hampshire-based alternative network and retail ISP toob, which has rolled out their own full fibre broadband network around the South of England and harnesses CityFibre’s network in other UK areas, has today confirmed to ISPreview that they’ve put more staff on notice of potential redundancy following last month’s debt deal with Ares.
The operator originally aspired to cover 1 million premises across parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex by 2027. Yet like many other altnets those aspirations have in recent years come under pressure from the rising cost of build, stubbornly high interest rates and competition. The latter had previously already caused some job cuts a few years ago, which also saw toob switch their efforts to focus more on commercialisation (here and here).
Sadly, the last round of changes didn’t resolve the underlying problem, which recently resulted in Ares taking control of toob after the provider’s main backers, the Guernsey-based International Public Partnerships (INPP), “elected not to commit further capital” to the business and handed most of its original £24.1m investment off to debt holders. Toob had in the past secured up to £395m of funding (equity and debt) from the Amber Infrastructure Group, INPP and others like Ares.
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Shortly after that Ares announced that they’d made an additional investment in toob, albeit without revealing any details, so as to “continue to execute its growth strategy from a stronger financial position as it seeks to generate long-term, sustainable value creation while maintaining exceptional service for its customers.”
The latest development occurred over the weekend after sources began informing ISPreview that a further c.60 jobs are due to be cut from the provider, partly from the operator’s build and support teams. The same sources also indicated that toob’s customer service is set to be outsourced to Egypt as part of wider efforts to cut costs.
A spokesperson for toob told ISPreview:
“toob is focused on growing its customer base with over 140,000 customers having chosen toob for its reliable, fast full-fibre broadband at very competitive prices and high levels of customer service.
To continue offering its market-leading products at competitive prices whilst maintaining this level of customer service, toob must continue to evolve its business model.
As part of this process, we are reviewing the structure across our UK and offshore locations as we complete our primary network build. These proposed changes have implications for some roles, and we have commenced collective consultation with affected employees. We recognise the impact this process may have on individuals and are committed to engaging with affected employees throughout the consultation.
Our priority is to maintain the quality of service our customers expect.”
The development is not a surprise because we had been expecting Ares to initiate a restructure of the business, which often results in the loss of further jobs. We now strongly expect that toob will increase their commercialisation efforts, while future network expansion seems set to come more from their partnership with CityFibre (off-net) than further expansion of their own FTTP infrastructure (on-net)
Just to put this in some context. Toob’s latest accounts to the end of 2025 saw them report an operating loss of £17.82m (2024: £23.50m), capex of £14.46m (2024: £46.47m), revenue of £26.05m (2024: £14.03m), total liabilities of £355.28m (2024: £299.49m) and an average number of employees of 287 (2024: 315).
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The company also reported being supported by a total mix of equity and debt worth £264.15m and had a total loss, after tax, of £56.63m (2024: £52.82m).
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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There’s something ironic about Toob announcing they are cutting jobs and outsourcing support on the same day they have another outage.
I’m in Leeds and been with toob for 3 months. Much better than Vodafone service and customer service is very good.
Was a Toob IPv4 CGNAT issue, I have a static IPv4 IP and the line never went down
Dreading the next budget which will squeeze companies even further after investment dried up. unfortunately further taxation will come and even more job cuts across every sector, which means less revenue which means even more job cuts
Add the everyday acclerating reduction in jobs by AI and less tax receipts. Don’t worry though, the governement of the day will intervene in 10 years time with half measures, after the horse has bolted and realisation they can’t tax ordinary working folk and have unemployment welfare and PIPS welfare that is out of control with no reform/checks added. Working people are in for a great time!
We have lower levels of personal taxation that any of our neighbouring countries. People in those countries do still seem to have jobs – and – public services that work.
Toob are losing money hand over fist, there is nothing there for the budget to ‘squeeze further’ and the horrific losses will be used to lesson taxes up the chain.
Every single person in this industry needs to be pragmatic about its existence. I dont understand why job loses is surprising to anyone. If you enter this industry understand its a short career. The fibre industry is an exact carbon copy of the copper LLU industry. It all became VM in the end after 15 short years.
Exactly the same will happen with the fibre industry within the next 10 years. One maybe 2 companies will remain.
For years we’ve had super low interest rates funding the Altnet builds. Now, with inflation, low takeup’s, and the era of free money ending, the Altnet business model is coming under strain; It’s no surprise, since history doesn’t repeat but often rhymes, this is very reminiscent of the 1990’s Cable TV company issues and will likely see similar results.
Startup Infrastructure build’s require lots of debt financing, if the returns are slow and interest rates climb, then the business model collapses without income to cover debt repayment and operating costs. They probably thought BT/Openreach would sit on their hands, or the regulators would nobble BT, but even regulation has its limits.
Hey maybe VMO2, why not put a bid in now rather than waiting until someone else does and then moan?
Not much of a surprise given the amount they’re charging. Practically giving it away. No way Toob is covering it’s costs.
Offshoring support is one decision they will regret. That single move will harm their brand and reduce customer sat faster than a string of CGNAT outages. They will reap what they sow on that move alone.