EVERETT – Verizon is opening a call center in Everett and hiring dozens of new employees to support customers of the company’s new fiber-optic network in Washington and Oregon.
The new customer service center, located at Verizon’s operations building along Casino Road, is scheduled to begin taking its first calls Monday.
Kevin Laverty, spokesman at Verizon’s regional headquarters in Everett, said such calls about the company’s fiber-optic Internet and TV services – called FiOS – have been handled most recently by a center in California.
“Now we’re saying we need to ramp up and put a center here in the Northwest,” Laverty said.
The first 20 or so employees in the new FiOS service center in Everett come from Verizon’s ranks, but the company is looking outside the company to fill another 40 or so jobs before 2006 ends, Laverty said. The jobs pay between $10.25 and $23.23 an hour based on experience and other factors.
So far, FiOS high-speed Internet service is available to customers in parts of Mill Creek, Bothell and northern King County.
But Verizon is spending $23 billion to expand FiOS as fast as it can in 16 states. Installing fiber-optic lines right to customers’ front doors can help the telecommunications company provide fast multimedia services and compete more directly against cable TV and Internet companies. The company hopes to have 725,000 FiOS Internet customers signed up by year’s end. It also has rolled out a TV service over the network in some markets, though not in this state.
Demand for fast Internet connections and digital phone and high-definition TV services have benefited both Verizon and its chief local rival Comcast, and both are expanding locally.
Verizon, which employs more than 1,200 people in Snohomish County, has added more employees to its general call center in the area in addition to opening the new FiOS center.
Driven in part by its new digital telephone offering, Comcast also has been hiring in a big way around Puget Sound. Last month, that company broke ground on a $20 million call center and regional headquarters building in Lynnwood, which will house about 350 employees when it opens next year.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Call center jobs
Information about Verizon’s local job opportunities can be found online at www.verizon.com/about/ careers. For more about new jobs at Comcast in Snohomish County, go to careers.comcast.com.
Call center jobs
Information about Verizon’s local job opportunities can be found online at www.verizon.com/about/careers. For more about new jobs at Comcast in Snohomish County, go to careers.comcast.com.
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