BBC today reported that Openreach, the engineering wing of British Telecom will create 5,300 new telecom related jobs in the UK. The UK government has informed the telecoms firms about its decision to take ultra-fast broadband networks to every corner of the country.
By following the UK government’s instruction, Openreach is recruiting 2,500 people for engineering jobs and estimates another 2,800 jobs by its construction partners, thus a total of 5,300 new jobs in the telecom sector in the country.
Openreach is speeding up its fibre optic cable deployments with an aim to connect 20 million homes and firms by the late 2020s. The £12bn project has been accelerated in part due to the pandemic.
The UK government estimates that with a full-fibre optic broadband network available, nearly two million more people than previously estimated could choose to work from home in the long term, reducing transport and housing pressures in big cities and boosting local and rural economies across the country.
Currently, Openreach is extending its full-fibre network to 40,000 homes and businesses a week. Openreach’s accelerated deployment scheme will result in 50,000 premise connections per week by the end of next year.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has found that a nationwide full-fibre broadband network would boost UK productivity by £59bn by 2025 – and updated modelling suggests it could enable nearly one million more people to access employment.
Openreach says people will not need engineering skills to apply for the jobs – among its recent recruits have been shop workers, ex-servicemen and women, and a trainee vet.
UK’s broadband market was depending on legacy copper cables, while most of the Western European countries progressed well with the deployment of optical fibers direct to the home. Optical fibers offer enormous data transmission capacity along with modern transmission equipment.
The policy changes encouraged Openreach to deploy more fiber and thus offer enhanced fiber optic broadband services to its subscribers. According to Ofcom, the telecom regulatory authority of UK, there are almost 600,000 homes and businesses that do not have access to a broadband connection higher than 10Mbps.
Openreach pledged to make new fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) connections available to 3.2 million premises in 250 towns and villages, including Thurso in the far north of Scotland, Aberystwyth on Cardigan Bay in Wales, and Lingfield in Surrey in July 2020.
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