Gunny
0
Thought it was worth summarising the Toob journey (and it is a journey) from build to service activation. There has been lots of good discussions in the area/region threads and by no means is this a typical timeline, some will be shorter and some longer, but hopefully it helps provide some indication of what to expect.
Build Timeline:
For my area of Southampton (Hightown) the build followed this rough timescale.
•Sept 2022 - Green cabinet installed
•Nov 2022 - Purple microducts installed between cabs and floor chambers
•March 2023 - inspection of micro ducts and fibre blown
•May 2023 - Fibre tray installed in green cab
•June 2023 - Final testing
•20th June 2023 - Service live and ready to order.
Toob estimate 6 months once an area is in build, as you can see in my case it was more like 10 months. There were large gaps between activity and I believe that was down to the live network e.g streets nearby not being live until late May. I suspect Toob simply focus on progressing areas that they can connect back to the live network, this would explain why from May activity really picked up pace, as the service came within a few streets away.
Go live: Toob will send you an email once you can order, I was checking daily using their postcode checker throughout June and actually found out I could order before I got the email. Once you order it’s definitely worth checking online to see if you can change your install date, I brought my forward by almost 3 weeks.
Unfortunately I had trouble with the underground duct that serves my property, something I managed to resolve myself,
Toob quoted 4-6 weeks to get a team out to do it. Once this was resolved I got an install date which was 3 weeks away, but managed to call them and bring it forward, so only a short 3 day wait.
Installation: This will follow your Openreach service, so can be overhead or underground. I believe in either case the team installing the service will do their best to get the service to an entry point of your choosing. The team actually came the day before and ran the drop cable, this is the short cable from the cabinet or nearest service point (Normally a connector block for overhead install), into your property.
I decided to have the service enter at the same point as the current Openreach copper service for a couple of reasons. Firstly the location has power and that’s needed for the ONT (Optical Network Terminal), the box that converts light signal to electrical signal, similar to a modem. Secondly I didn’t want a long run of cable externally on the house, the cable comes out the duct and enters the house which is about as neat as you can get it. And lastly, I had already ran a 30m length of Cat 6 (Ethernet) to this point behind some dot and dab wall up into the loft and then into a small data cabinet, this is where I would house a router.
Internal Setup: One of the downsides of Toob is the provided router it’s a Sagecom, parking this in your house somewhere is not going to get the best out of the 900mb connection. Personally I was always going to use my own setup, I have a UDM-SE with Ethernet to my PC which gives 1Gbe to the main device that needs it, for everything else I have x2 U6 Lite Wi-Fi 6 access points covering upstairs and downstairs with both having a 1Gbe uplink back to the UDM-SE.
This provides solid WiFi throughout the house with WI-FI 5 devices getting a solid 300-500mb connection and Wi-Fi 6 devices getting 600-800mb connections. Of course Wi-Fi will never be as good a wired with my PC achieving the full 900/900 speed.
I definitely recommend ditching the Sagecom router or as a minimum extending the Wi-Fi coverage using a mesh to get best out of your fibre connection.
Build Timeline:
For my area of Southampton (Hightown) the build followed this rough timescale.
•Sept 2022 - Green cabinet installed
•Nov 2022 - Purple microducts installed between cabs and floor chambers
•March 2023 - inspection of micro ducts and fibre blown
•May 2023 - Fibre tray installed in green cab
•June 2023 - Final testing
•20th June 2023 - Service live and ready to order.
Toob estimate 6 months once an area is in build, as you can see in my case it was more like 10 months. There were large gaps between activity and I believe that was down to the live network e.g streets nearby not being live until late May. I suspect Toob simply focus on progressing areas that they can connect back to the live network, this would explain why from May activity really picked up pace, as the service came within a few streets away.
Go live: Toob will send you an email once you can order, I was checking daily using their postcode checker throughout June and actually found out I could order before I got the email. Once you order it’s definitely worth checking online to see if you can change your install date, I brought my forward by almost 3 weeks.
Unfortunately I had trouble with the underground duct that serves my property, something I managed to resolve myself,
Toob quoted 4-6 weeks to get a team out to do it. Once this was resolved I got an install date which was 3 weeks away, but managed to call them and bring it forward, so only a short 3 day wait.
Installation: This will follow your Openreach service, so can be overhead or underground. I believe in either case the team installing the service will do their best to get the service to an entry point of your choosing. The team actually came the day before and ran the drop cable, this is the short cable from the cabinet or nearest service point (Normally a connector block for overhead install), into your property.
I decided to have the service enter at the same point as the current Openreach copper service for a couple of reasons. Firstly the location has power and that’s needed for the ONT (Optical Network Terminal), the box that converts light signal to electrical signal, similar to a modem. Secondly I didn’t want a long run of cable externally on the house, the cable comes out the duct and enters the house which is about as neat as you can get it. And lastly, I had already ran a 30m length of Cat 6 (Ethernet) to this point behind some dot and dab wall up into the loft and then into a small data cabinet, this is where I would house a router.
Internal Setup: One of the downsides of Toob is the provided router it’s a Sagecom, parking this in your house somewhere is not going to get the best out of the 900mb connection. Personally I was always going to use my own setup, I have a UDM-SE with Ethernet to my PC which gives 1Gbe to the main device that needs it, for everything else I have x2 U6 Lite Wi-Fi 6 access points covering upstairs and downstairs with both having a 1Gbe uplink back to the UDM-SE.
This provides solid WiFi throughout the house with WI-FI 5 devices getting a solid 300-500mb connection and Wi-Fi 6 devices getting 600-800mb connections. Of course Wi-Fi will never be as good a wired with my PC achieving the full 900/900 speed.
I definitely recommend ditching the Sagecom router or as a minimum extending the Wi-Fi coverage using a mesh to get best out of your fibre connection.























