National Broadband Network (NBN) wholesaler, NBN Co has flagged plans to set up a customer contact centre on the Gold Coast, with the facility due to be operational by the second half of 2012.
The centre will be located in the suburb of Varsity Lakes and expects to start recruitment this month with aims to employ 130 employees in total, 100 of which will be brought on within 12 months.
NBN Co head of quality, Mike Kaiser, said the centre would be important for communicating how the network is built and the steps people need to take to transition from their current infrastructure to the NBN, following the network’s announced three year rollout plan.
“The new centre will handle the anticipated escalation in NBN queries from the general public, property developers and builders now that the company has begun large-scale rollout of Australia’s largest infrastructure project,” Kaiser said in a statement.
“As NBN Co and our contractors are starting work on the construction and installation phase of the rollout in many communities across Australia we need a dedicated centre to manage inquiries and respond to the great interest in the project.
“While NBN Co is not directly selling broadband services to homeowners and businesses the customer centre will support the work of the retail service providers who will have the ongoing relationship with their customers.”
An NBN Co spokesperson told Computerworld Australia, the location was chosen using self-set criteria, including specifications such as, it could not be located in CBD areas with high rental rates, the area must have high population numbers, the location must have good transport links including roads, buses and aviation access, and it must be located near other major infrastructure like universities, hospitals and tourism.
They also needed a high percentage of call centre employment workers, the spokesperson said, which according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data is in the 18-42 age bracket.
The spokesperson declined to comment on the cost of the facility and said the company had not ruled out the establishment of more centres but would wait to assess further demand.
The three year rollout will connect 3.5 million premises by 2015 including more than one million premises in NSW, 700,000 in Victoria, 680,000 in Queensland, 430,000 in Western Australia, 330,000 in South Australia, 65,000 in the Northern Territory and over 200,000 in Tasmania.
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