Telstra is putting more boots on the ground with 1000 new technicians spread across Australia to reduce the time it takes to install and fix services.
New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory will see the biggest benefit, accounting for 503 of new technicians to be put into the field over the next six months.
Telstra executive director of customer service delivery Brian Harcourt said the NSW central coast is a growth area for Telstra with more users connecting to the national broadband network.
"When you boil it down, to improve average customer service you have to get customer service right in NSW," Mr Harcourt said noting the state's large population.
Victoria and Tasmania will see an additional 110 technicians added to the field, while Queensland will add 151, South Australia will add 94 and Western Australia will add 43.
The extra staff are not part of the additional $3 billion the company announced last month that it would spend on improving its networks.
Telstra was hit with a number of network outages in the first half of 2016 across its mobile and broadband networks and faced customer backlash over the issues given the telco bases its business on charging a premium for a superior service.
Mr Harcourt said Telstra currently has 600 technicians in training and the first 140 are already in the field.
The extra staff are a mix of full-time Telstra additionals and sub-contractors from ISGM. Around three-quarters are sub-contractors.
"When we look at the volume of work we've got ahead, there's two to three years worth of peak work in the telco industry due to NBN," Mr Harcourt said.
New employees are training for up to 17 weeks, with Telstra before going out on the job and are from a wide range of backgrounds.
"I think the mining downturn has helped [Telstra find staff], but we have people who are dropping out of trades, dropping out of office work," Mr Harcourt said.
Mr Harcourt said he anticipated adding more technicians next year, however not at this scale.
"Increasing the number of CTs that perform these tasks will have the dual benefit of enabling us to get through more work and freeing up our more experienced technicians to deal with more complex tasks," he said.
