All chosen recruits will start their new jobs in May this year and will be part of a mobile engineering workforce that can be deployed anywhere in the UK, helping to install super-fast broadband to homes and businesses.
This latest recruitment drive follows the employment last year of around 500 ex-armed forces personnel to help deliver BT’s £2.5bn fibre programme.
BT’s deployment of fibre broadband is one of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects with the technology being delivered at much faster speed than in other countries. Two thirds of UK premises will have access by the end of 2014*. More than seven million homes and businesses already have access and that will increase to 10 million later this year.
Liv Garfield, CEO Openreach said: “We’re really pleased with the progress we are making in delivering our fibre deployment. Through system and process enhancements, we’re delighted to be delivering fibre even faster. We can only do this if we have the right number and calibre of engineers on the ground. It is also fantastic to be able to offer permanent jobs to people in the current economic climate.”
FTTC, where fibre is delivered to street cabinets, recently doubled download speeds available to Communications Providers (CPs) to up to 80Mbps, with up to 20Mbps upstream.
FTTP, where the fibre goes directly to homes and businesses, offers download speeds to CPs of up to 100Mbps, rising to up to 300Mbps from this Spring. It will also be available ‘on demand’ in all areas which have been upgraded for FTTC from Spring 2013.
Both offer speeds many times faster than those currently available to most UK homes and businesses. In the most recent research unveiled by regulator Ofcom, the average speed of all UK broadband was 7.6Mbps.