Southampton: City's £50m full-fibre network strikes new partnership

Internet service provider toob is joining forces with business improvement district GO! Southampton to boost its £50 million rollout of a new full-fibre network, which will make the city one of the best connected in the UK.

Over the next two years, toob will be looking to enable 100,000 premises in the city – residential, commercial and public services – to connect to its hyperspeed broadband network, delivering download speeds 16 times faster than the UK average and upload speeds up to 125 times faster.

toob sees its partnership with GO! Southampton as pivotal. Nick Parbutt, toob’s CEO, said: “Without doubt Southampton has an outstanding reputation for being progressive and committed to being at the forefront of digital developments both on a national and international stage. It’s a large, commercial regional hub, with two vibrant universities, balanced with a focus on encouraging digital and knowledge-based start-ups. For this reason, we believe the rollout of our network is entirely aligned with the direction of the city.

“We have already had terrific co-operation from the City Council and now we are delighted to have teamed up with GO! Southampton, which has huge influence in the BID area which covers a significant part of the city centre together with important stakeholders. The BID’s innovative approach to help us build engagement within both the business and residential communities has been second to none.”

Parbutt added: “This is good news for everyone. In deploying its network, toob will create a full fibre infrastructure that will benefit residents, businesses and public services and provides a digital foundation that will support the deployment of 5G and smart city projects throughout Southampton.”

Giles Semper, chief executive of GO! Southampton, said: “This is a fantastic initiative for the city and demonstrates the effectiveness of good partnerships. The BID is uniquely positioned to give toob unrivalled access to the businesses within the city and ensures Southampton remains a leading, prosperous UK city at the cutting edge of technology.”

At £25 per month, toob will be offering 900Mbps average upload and download speeds to residential customers with unlimited usage and no line rental charges, the most competitive gigabit broadband service in the UK.

The company will also be providing a business broadband package with 900Mbps average upload and download speeds, premium installation, enhanced business support and the latest Mesh Wi-Fi technology for £50 per month, excluding VAT.

The first customers will be able to sign up this autumn, with the Southampton network scheduled to be completed by the end of 2021. Where possible toob says it will use as much existing infrastructure as possible, keeping the need to dig up roads to a minimum.