BT is looking to fill more than 1,300 new jobs as part of a £1bn upgrade to the UK's phone network.

The new engineers will work on phone and internet connections to homes and businesses as part of BT Openreach, the telco's new access and services division.

Around £100m is planned to be invested in each of 10 UK regions during the next 12 months to improve the network's capacity. The work will include the installation of thousands of miles of new optical fibre and copper cabling.

"This major investment in infrastructure and new engineers will help us in the continuing improvement in service to our customers and end users," a BT spokesman said. ®

Related stories

• BT wants more women engineers (27 June 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/06/27/bt_women/

• BT dogged by Deutsche Telekom takeover talk (30 May 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/05/30/bt_dt/

• BT's 'honeymoon period' nearing end (24 May 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/05/24/bt_honeymoon/

• BT drags heels over LLU (11 April 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/04/11/llu_ota/

• Telcos complain about lack of Openreach staff (28 February 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/02/28/openreach_staff/

• BT Openreach faces first Ofcom probe (10 February 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/02/10/openreach_opal/

• BT cuts ribbon on new Openreach biz (11 January 2006)

  https://www.theregister.com/2006/01/11/bt_openreach/