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Fibre Install
Price £29 per month fixed for 18 months (see billing section below)
Speed 900Mbps up and down
Router Linksys Velop MX5400 series
Installation consists of having fibre cable provided to a small external box and then a fibre cable from this box through your wall to connect to a further device (Optical Network Termination unit) which must be mains powered. The supplied router is then plugged in to the ONT to connect to the network. Installation normally takes between 1 and 2 hours to complete.
Unlike the older FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet), once everything is registered and setup there is no 'training' i.e. where your broadband router adjusts itself to get the best possible speed. This normally lasts for about 2 weeks. With fibre you have full speed immediately.
It is worth mentioning that to obtain the quoted 900Mbps up and down speeds, it is only achieved using a wired connection. The router does support WiFi 6 standards however the majority of older WiFi devices will be unable to use this and will work at a considerably slower speed. A further complication with WiFi is where the router is placed and the distance your devices are from the router. For gamers who often want high speed and low latency (ping times) a cat6 ethernet cable should be used.
The router is Mesh enabled so further routers can be purchased (around £40 on Ebay) and can then be placed appropriately to allow complete home coverage.
For Horsell, Toob use the Woking Telephone exchange as their concentrator point.
For techies it is worth noting that you do NOT get a public IP address. If needed this is charged at (a whopping) £8 per month. I can understand that Toob would prefer that you do not provide web or other services over your fibre connection (hence the charge).
Installation - the techie bit
Installation - the techie bit
Rachel from Toob arrived 20 minutes early and offered to wait if necessary before starting the installation - This was good customer service. I was happy and ready for the work to commence.
Rachel was going to do the install on her own as it was considered a one person job.
Prior to the install, I had disconnected an old cable already going through the outside wall to provide a route directly in to the office where I wanted the ONT installed.
Rachel and I discussed the position of the down cable from the pole and she insisted that the fibre must be cleeted to the wall as cable ties were not acceptable - Again a further plus point.
Install commenced by spanning a, drop fibre/cable (pre terminated at both ends) from the pole to my home (no splicing needed). The fibre was then fed to an outside termination box. The box was placed where a short pigtail fibre is fed through the wall into the office so it is hidden and protected. A simple connector is used in this box to join the internal to the external cable.
Before connecting, a light reading was taken giving 18.75 db (range 14-27). Excess drop cable is coiled on the roof and also in this box (although there was not a lot).
Once the connections are made the work progressed in the office with the ONT being placed on a shelf (I supplied), The ONT and the supplied router both require power to be close (also supplied on my shelf). The pigtail was attached to the ONT and when powered up, it went through its initialisation (about 2 minutes) and a green connection light lit. This indicated that the ONT was receiving optical data from the exchange (which is great).
The supplied router's 2.5Gb internet port is then connected to the ONT and the router performs its initialisation / provisioning. When complete a computer was plugged directly in to the router and a speed test showed 932 Mbps download with a 936 Mbps upload. These speeds are excellent and for £29 * 18 months are good value.
I could tell that Rachel was happy doing her job and happy to explain what was happening as she did the work.
Once the router had initialised and the speed test done, I was able to disconnect the single data connection to my old router and connect it to the ONT in place of the Toob router. My network was disconnected for less than a minute and then everything started working. Because I used the single switch service I had both services running in parallel and I cannot see how this switchover / downtime could be beaten.
Billing
Billing
When I checked my account on the website, I will be billed £29 per month for the 18 month contract and it will then rise to £33 per month there after. I gave Toob a quick call to clarify this price increase and also see if I could change from 18 month to 24 month contract to save some money over two years. My call was answered within 3 minutes by Stella who was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. The £33 charge is if you are out of contract and on a rolling monthly contract. If however you renew your contract prior to it expiring i.e. in month 17, the price will remain fixed at £29. Once again I consider this to show that Toob are thinking about their customers.
Well done Toob / Rachel / Stella.
Well done Toob / Rachel / Stella.
The total install took just less that 2 hours and after Rachel left, Toob sent a welcome email advising that my old provider (Now broadband) would be informed and the service terminated.
Toob do offer a referral scheme where we each receive a payment if my link is used - As I have recently been diagnosed with cancer I will make donations to the Royal Surrey Hospital cancer department.
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