Verizon on hiring track in Tampa, adding 100 FiOS customer reps

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is staffing its national customer-retention center in Tampa with 100 new sales representatives to support various sales and customer support functions mainly for its wireline FiOS Internet and FiOS TV services.

New staff members will work in the telco's downtown Tampa call center after regular business hours to handle requests from new and existing wireline customers in 12 states and Washington, D.C.

Complementing its own recruitment efforts, Verizon is working with the City of Tampa and economic development partners like the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation and the Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance.

"Tampa is ideal for this new service center for many reasons, including a skilled, available labor pool; a great quality of life; and the outstanding job our existing employees already do to take care of our customers," said Jeanmarie Milla, Verizon's Florida region president, in a release. 

This latest hiring drive comes at a time when Verizon has seeing FiOS growth in Florida. In 2012, the telco invested over $347 million on its wireline networks and IT infrastructure in the state, including the Tampa Bay area. Earlier, in May 2010 Tampa became one of the first locations where it eliminated contracts for FiOS subscribers.

From an overall company perspective, consumer FiOS data and TV has become a key revenue driver in its wireline portfolio. While it won't release its Q2 2013 results until July 18, in Q1 the telco reported that FiOS revenues rose 15.1 percent year over year, to $2.6 billion and that it added 188,000 FiOS Internet and 169,000 FiOS Video customers.

Verizon is not the only telco upping its TV and broadband workforce. AT&T (NYSE: T), for one, has announced plans to expand its U-verse workforce in three of its operating states: Texas, Mississippi and South Carolina. 

For more:
- see the release

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