Alternative network builder and gigabit broadband ISP toob, which is deploying a full fibre (FTTP) network across parts of South England (they’re also sharing some of CityFibre’s infrastructure), has recently revealed that they’ve managed to grow their customer base to over 50,000 (up from 20,000 a year ago).
The Hampshire-based operator 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), which could be upsized to £300m over time to support growth.
However, toob did recently run into a few challenges, which resulted in some redundancies and a change of build strategy (here). But the positive news today is that toob recently confirmed having passed the milestone of 50,000 customers, which is more than double the 20,000 they had this time last year.
The provider doesn’t appear to have put out a press release about this (we spotted it via social media), which is a shame as this seems to be a good result. On the other hand, toob hasn’t issued an update on their network coverage in over a year, which makes it difficult to examine their relative take-up rate. So far as we can tell, the 50,000 figure was first stated on their website during early May 2024.