200 jobs vow as firm pledges lightning-fast broadband for Shropshire
A telecoms network provider has pledged to create 200 new jobs after announcing the opening of its new office in Shropshire.
The jobs will help Full Fibre Limited, which provides fibre-optic infrastructure, to connect more than 50,000 Shropshire homes and businesses with faster broadband by the end of 2021.
Initially, the company will employ a team of about 30 new staff in the new Telford office. This number will increase as Full Fibre moved ahead with its current build plans.
Shropshire is notorious for its slow broadband compared with other parts of the country.
With thousands of people working from home and children being off school more during the pandemic, the already poor bandwidth in Shropshire has been stretched to the limit.
It is hoped the new investment will shorten the digital divide the county has with other areas.
Earlier this year, it was announced that Shrewsbury, Wem, Oswestry and Bayston Hill, that other major infrastructure providers have previously overlooked, will be the next to benefit from Full Fibre’s latest build plans.
Full Fibre CEO Oliver Helm said: “As the company grows exponentially, we will create more than 200 jobs in communities that have been badly impacted by lockdown, helping to kickstart the local economy as we begin to leave Covid-19 restrictions behind.”
Figures from Compare the Market last year showed people living in the Shropshire Council local authority area get an average broadband download speed of just 37.8 Mbps – well below the UK-wide average of 64 Mbps and a long way short of the average for users in Telford and Wrekin.
