News

The operator says it plans to hire over 400 apprentice and graduates in its September 2023 intake

This week, UK incumbent operator BT has announced that it is looking to foster the next generation of telecoms talent by bringing on board over 400 new recruits in the coming year.

The new apprentices and graduates will be recruited to work in a variety of areas within the business, including engineering, customer service, and cybersecurity.

These jobs will be made available at a variety of locations around the UK, primarily in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Ipswich, Leeds, London, and Manchester.

BT notes that many of these offices are part of its ongoing Better Workplace Programme, a scheme first announced back in 2019 that sought to consolidate the company’s 300 offices into just 30 as part of broader cost cutting measures. The Programme, which is set to be completed next year, aimed to modernise these remaining locations, creating “future fit, high tech workspaces where colleagues can collaborate, innovate and deliver the best service for BT Group’s customers and for the business”.

It is also worth noting here that his hiring process will be undertaken with BT’s Manifesto in mind, aiming to more diversified workforce by 2030. As part of the plan, BT is targetting a 50:50 gender split within the workforce, as well as ethnic minority groups making up 25% of staff, and people with disabilities comprising 17%.

“As one of the largest private sector employers of apprentices and graduates in the UK, we continue to recruit and attract brilliant people into our business and we offer unparalleled development opportunities to those who join us,” said Athalie Williams, BT Group’s Chief Human Resources Officer. “Despite the current economic backdrop, we’re building a future pipeline of talent to help drive growth across our business, deliver great outcomes for all of our customers and to underpin economic growth in the UK.”

The operator says it has recruited over 2,600 apprentices and graduates over the last five years, with around 4,000 of the company’s staff working towards qualifications at any one time.

This announcement of further recruitment comes at a relatively delicate time for BT.

Last November, the company said that soaring energy prices would force it to seek even more cost savings by 2025 than previous expected, increasing targets from £2.5 billion to £3 billion. Some of these cost savings would “inevitably” be derived from a reduction in staff, according to BT CEO Philip Jansen.

It is also worth noting that BT has only recently settled a pay dispute with its existing engineers and call centre staff, which saw disgruntled workers vote for the first national strike action in 35 years. In November, BT agreed to settle the despute by offering staff a £1,500 pay rise.

Is the UK telecoms industry doing enough to nurture the next generation of telecoms talent? Join the operators in discussion at this year’s upcoming Connected North conference

Also in the news:
UK Space Agency to invest £50m in satellite comms
Neos Networks announces fibre milestones in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London
American Tower rumoured to be eying Cellnex takeover

Press Release

This agreement between AFR-IX and Colt will enable the multinational to strengthen its connections to the main European routes

Barcelona (Spain), 26^th January 2023. Colt Technology Services (Colt), the digital infrastructure company, today announced the connection of its award-winning intelligent Colt IQ Network to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station (Barcelona CLS). Colt becomes first carrier to link to Barcelona CLS of AFR-IX telecom. The new CLS has been built by African internet exchange AFR-IX Telecom which is already using Colt’s network in the African market to provide an internet service to African operators and customers to connect them to European data centers via Colt’s routes.

Colt operates in more than 220 cities in over 30 countries and connects more than 1,000 data centres and over 31,000 connected buildings in the largest business centres in Europe, Asia and North America. Colt’s network in Spain and Portugal is already serving Lisbon, Bilbao, Madrid and Barcelona, and has 13 connection points to data centers in Barcelona.

Connection with the major European digital hubs

Colt will be able to offer, from Barcelona CLS, services like  data centre interconnection (Data Centre Interconnect), inter-network traffic exchange (IP Transit) or dark fibre (non-active fibre optic circuits that enable the capacity of customers to be expanded in times of need).

Colt will enable Barcelona CLS to connect to Europe’s major digital hubs (Paris, London, Frankfurt) and provide an express terrestrial route to other key regional cable landing stations such as Lisbon, Bilbao and Marseilles, installing new submarine cables and capacity in the US, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

In addition, the Colt deal is an example of how Barcelona CLS is shaping the digital ecosystem needed to build a competitive digital hub in Southern Europe.

Christian Schmidt, Colt’s Network Expansion Manager for Spain, said: “Colt is participating in the repositioning of the Iberian Peninsula as a European digital hub, becoming a key player in the connections between America, Asia, Africa and Europe. To avoid saturation in Europe, the peninsula has become an essential hub to diversify connectivity. The Barcelona landing station for submarine cables will position the Iberian peninsula geo-strategically as a key access point to Europe.”

Norman Albi, CEO of AFR-IX telecom, said: “We are very proud that Colt, with whom AFR-IX telecom has had a long-standing business relationship, will be part of the Barcelona CLS project, as it will represent a major deployment of the station’s activity, which opened in October. With Colt, we are sure that other operators will follow, as synergies are very important in this sector”.

How is the submarine cable landscape changing in 2023? Join the experts in discussion at this year’s live Submarine Networks EMEA conference

Also in the news:
UK Space Agency to invest £50m in satellite comms
Neos Networks announces fibre milestones in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London
American Tower rumoured to be eying Cellnex takeover

Press Release

Two more executive leadership appointments and a key 5G partnership: … [visit site to read more]

STARTUP STORIES

t3 Broadband are one of the companies you can meet at Connected America, making place in Dallas this March. Find out more here

Tell us about your start up
t3 Broadband is a company that specializes in providing engineering services and products for broadband access solutions. Our offerings include RF engineering, wireless engineering, fixed and mobile wireless products, optical products, and GIS. We work closely with our operator customers to effectively solve their business needs by providing the correct product, solution and service set that help achieve their goals. Customers are service providers, utilities, tribes, and other entities that provide broadband and mobile services to their subscribers, typically but exclusively to the rural markets.

What is your USP
t3 approaches each customer opportunity with an economic-first approach, working with our customer to solve their broadband network questions in the most cost-effective manner possible. We also take a solution- and vendor-neutral position, and given our background in both fixed and mobile networking, partner with our customers to find the best options to fit their budgets and their needs, many times creating a hybrid network solution that combines wireless and fiber components. We also bring unique intellectual property to our customer engagements that combines business and technical domains that are aligned to meet each customer’s budget and solution requirements.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
Telecom service providers are t3’s customers. These service providers may be fixed wireline operators such as traditional telephone or cable companies, mobile operators migrating their 3G and 4G networks to 5G, and tribes, municipalities, and utilities providing broadband to their communities.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
We are in a growth mode, self-supported with some key customers and partners, leveraging both the national broadband infrastructure investments and network modernization trends across both fixed and mobile operators.

Why did you establish the business?
Based on the management team’s background with large multinational companies, we started t3 to provide similar services to rural and smaller operators to assist them in bridging the digital broadband divide with value-based economic solutions.

What is your motivation?
Our motivation is the need for advanced digital services in rural parts of the country and our ability to help our customers provide these services to their communities.

What does the future hold for your business?
With broadband becoming a critical service, we see continued growth with the expansion into the unserved and underserved markets and communities.

COMPANY CV
HEADQUARTERS: Council Grove, KS USA
LAST FUNDING TYPE: Self-funded, private investment
WEBSITE URL: www.t3broadband.com
FOUNDER: Chris Crowe, Owner/CEO