New broadband ISP toob has started rolling out its full fibre network in Southampton. The firm, which is headquartered in Portsmouth, was set up by Vodafone veterans Nick Parbutt (CEO) and Mike Banwell (CFO), and has appointed Charles McGregor as Chairman. McGregor was previously Chairman of Gigaclear for five years, and founded and led Fibernet. Toob intends to spend £50 million to connect 100,000 premises in Southampton by the end of 2021, with the first customers going live by the end of 2019. It will use Openreach’s ducts and pole access (PIA) product, which became available in April 2019.
Toob aims to pass one million premises in the South over 10 years, financed initially by £75 million from Amber Infrastructure Group’s National Digital Infrastructure Fund (NDIF).
Toob’s offer is ideal for microbusinesses and homeworkers, offering speeds of 900Mbit/s for £25 per month, with unlimited usage and no line rental charges. Their business broadband offering will have similar speeds but include premium installation, business support and Mesh WiFi technology for £50 per month.
Southampton’s network providers
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- Hyperoptic – has some 1Gbit/s FTTP/B to apartment building in the city
- Openreach – offers ‘ultrafast broadband’ based on hybrid fibre G.fast
- Virgin Media – is available to 86% of premises, with a full fibre option (FTTP/B) to 3.6% of premises. The company is currently upgrading their network to DOCSIS 3.1 which will deliver 1Gbit/s download and 50Mbit/s upload speeds by the end of 2019.