J. Parker Ragland
Special to the Business Press
AT&T announced a new project, one that will provide the Texas economy with 1,800 new jobs throughout the state – including 770 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The company is looking for new technicians to install U-verse technologies, customer service representatives at call centers, and employees to operate their retail stores. Dave Nichols, AT&T’s state president in Texas, said that AT&T has invested more than $7 billion dollars in its Texas networks and that the people who work to maintain that connectivity are “the backbone of that service.” The company’s new project, Velocity IP (VIP), a three-year investment plan, seeks to both expand and enhance its broadband networks. They want to install over 10,000 macro sites, 1,000 distribution antenna systems, and 40,000 small cells. This project will result in an expanded 4G LTE service that will cover over 300 million people by the end of 2014, a wired IP network available at 57 million customer location, and a fiber network that will reach over 1 million more business locations by the end of 2015. Furthermore, the company has announced that it is seeking to increase its veteran recruiting efforts; they purpose to propel 5,000 veterans into career opportunities over the next five years in Texas.