Oxnard Businesses Urged to Use GTE Rival AT & T

Oxnard’s business community welcomed GTE California with open arms in March when the telephone company announced that it was converting the never-used Chevron USA building into a customer-service center that would bring hundreds of jobs to the city.

But the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce is urging its members to give their long-distance and local toll-call business to a GTE rival, AT & T.

As far as Thousand Oaks-based GTE is concerned, the long-distance business is no loss. The company doesn’t carry those calls. But, along with AT & T, MCI and numerous other companies, it will begin vying for toll-call revenues when the toll service is decontrolled Jan. 1.

Don Facciano, the Oxnard chamber’s executive director, has sent a letter to members saying the group has formed “a new alliance with a company we should all feel proud to be associated with: AT & T.� He wrote that the deal, called Profit by Association, will offer members special discounts on business long-distance services, including toll calls.

According to the letter, AT & T will offer members rates about 50% lower than they now pay on toll calls in the Greater Los Angeles Area. Profit by Association will give members another 5% discount, Facciano wrote.

“Not only does AT & T provide the best quality, highest reliability, fastest call completion time, and round-the-clock service and support, they reward your loyalty with no-cost Value-Added programs that enhance your operations and improve your bottom line.�

GTE spokesman Larry Cox says he’s surprised that GTE, the main telephone utility in Oxnard, didn’t get an equal boost from the chamber. “Certainly, our new center will be a big plus for the city’s economy,� he said. “As for rates, we’re offering business customers plans that are at least as reasonable as AT & T’s.�

Cox says GTE’s new center, which will consolidate work formerly done at a number of offices throughout Southern California, will employ 500 workers by the end of December. “We’ll probably have 800 people there by the end of next year,� Cox added. “People laid off at other sites will get a chance to transfer there, but I expect we’ll be hiring several hundred people to work in Oxnard.�

Facciano, who formerly was manager of the Sears, Roebuck store in Oxnard, said there’s a simple reason why he bypassed GTE’s toll-call program. “They haven’t made us a pitch. AT & T did.�