Last night, ISPreview released an article regarding toob reducing its workforce as it transitions away from its current “build model”.
Mark Jackson, the owner of ISPreview, wrote, “The latest operator to possibly be experiencing some of these headwinds appears to be toob. According to some of the feedback we’ve received from sources this week, toob is alleged to have announced a large round of redundancies for August 2024, which some have claimed could slow their pace of FTTP build by around half. But toob itself gives a more optimistic interpretation.”
Now, we also received information regarding these job losses, around two weeks ago, and this was actually one of the main reasons we escalated the release of our free-to-use job board.
toob will not be the only “altnet” making similar changes. Many “altnets” are going through aggressive changes in 2024. We’re going to see many more mergers and acquisitions, which of course, will result in redundancies. Some altnets will hold back their build until their network has been penetrated (customers connected). Others will look to “strip back” before exiting.
Instead of reaching out to toob for a statement, here’s what they issued to ISPreview:
“toob has made an internal announcement to our teams that we will be changing our build model at the end of the year, with toob teams doing more of the work directly.
toob has committed funding to deliver a financially stable business based on a network build of over 300k premises alongside expansion of the toob broadband service onto CityFibre’s network. The plan is working well, and we have enjoyed strong customer growth across both networks.
In line with this plan, the business’ existing build areas will be materially complete by the end of this year, in a change to our model further build in 2025 and beyond will be largely delivered by toob teams on an agile and sustainable basis. There will therefore be growth in some areas of the business but fewer roles in others. As a result, some roles may be at risk of redundancy at the end of the year.
As a growing company that values our employees, we made the announcement to allow the maximum time for employees to consider their options for either redeployment or retraining within the company.”
toob can’t be seen as the “bad guy” in this either, although for many employees, it may seem that way. They’re one of the “successful” altnets, with a high penetration rate, a good brand, and, from what we can see, a good service! Funding is still strong, and they have a well-experienced leadership team/founders. They’re making the same decisions that other altnets are going through right now. Operations and engineering, to a degree, need to know that altnets will eventually slow down or cease to build and will not require the same quantity of talent they initially required when hitting build targets and that’s without mergers and acquisitions.
Last week, I attended the PXC Future Connected event, where Cityfibre spoke about the future of altnets. The discussion around the smaller altnets merging into one large powerhouse was a clear vision and is absolutely inevitable. We know this is already underway with a leaked announcement regarding Youfibre merging with BRSK (also published by the “fibre spy – Mark Jackson”). Mergers can often result in job losses.
Now, jumping back to our Job Board facility. If you’re a network or ISP still building at rapid rates and you’re currently hiring, then please post any jobs you’re currently recruiting for. It takes under two minutes to set up an account and post your first job! It could help many who are currently seeking new roles.
We will do everything we can to promote your live roles through our media outlets. We just need the industry to get behind the free platform to support those who need it! The platform will forever be free of charge. We built the Job Board on a separate domain, purposefully, so we wouldn’t cross-contaminate with marketing. It’s purely available to help people find their next job! What I need, is the support from networks, ISP’s, resellers, MSP’s, wholesalers, and vendors, to start advertising jobs. If those who need work arent able to see a list of available roles, the platform will take too long to take off.
Lets see what we can do, together.
