GTE California announces plan to deliver video services to 83,000 households.

Mike Crawford, GTE West Area vice president - general manager announced that as part of a 7-million-home, 10-year national rollout, GTE California plans to build a new video network, delivering broadcast, cable and interactive TV programming to about 83,000 Ventura County households and about 400,000 residents by the end of 1995.

"GTE is entering the video services business," Crawford said. "We plan to provide our customers in Ventura County with an array of video services, all accessible via their TV sets.

"TV viewers are evolving from being passive watchers to interactive media participants," he said. "They will expect such services as on-demand TV and movies, games, education, home banking and shopping, travel, investment, and video phone services."

Crawford said GTE's strength in designing national and local networks and personalizing customer service will provide customers with superior transmission quality and enhanced customer care, while making it easy for customers to preview and access a new range of services.

"We will start construction of our video services network this year. Pending regulatory approval, we will bring video services to customers in Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Camarillo, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula, and Oxnard by 1995," he said.

Crawford said GTE will spend $41 million in Ventura County alone to bring these services to customers. "And that doesn't include our ongoing yearly investments to upgrade our existing voice and data networks."

The announcement drew a positive reaction from the Communications Workers of America, which represents GTE's hourly employees.

"We're pleased that GTE has chosen the Thousand Oaks area to be one of its initial entry points for offering video services," said CWA District No. 9 Vice President Janice Wood. The business growth in these new broadband services provides new opportunities for our employees. This growth, coupled with the learning and utilization of new technologies as they emerge, will allow us to provide and prepare our employees for the telecommunications jobs of the future."

Thousand Oaks/Ventura County is part of GTE Telephone Operations' initial, national, video roll-out in four markets, including St. Petersburg/Clearwater, Fla.; Honolulu and northern Virginia.

GTE Telephone Operations will spend about $250 million the first two years to build its national fiber-optic and coaxial cable video network, serving nearly 550,000 homes in its initial four markets. This is in addition to the $2.7 billion GTE traditionally spends each year to upgrade and maintain its national network.

This effort will create a video network that will pass 7 million homes in 66 key GTE markets by 2003, delivering broadcast, cable and interactive TV programming to about 2 million residential subscribers.

Crawford said GTE is aggressively positioning itself nationally and in California to be a major player in the burgeoning video services market, estimated by industry experts to blossom into a $167-billion business within the next decade.

"We have a two-part strategy," he said. "Initially, we plan to sell video dial tone transport to video programmers for our in-franchise customers on a market-by-market basis. And, we want to partner with cable companies for out-of-franchise customers and programming expertise. Then, down-the-road, we intend to develop and package our own programming -- both traditional and interactive."

Crawford said GTE is not entering this venture blindly. "Through our Cerritos Project, we've conducted the most comprehensive test of interactive and traditional video services in the world. We've gathered years of marketing and technology research. Now, we're sharing the benefits of that experience with our residential customers in the marketplace."

"We're taking the hype out of the information superhighway," he said at the company's Thousand Oaks headquarters. "We've already brought the information superhighway to business customers and educators through our World Class Network. Through WCN, we're providing our customers a wide variety of voice, video, and data capabilities.

"And, we're giving every public school, library and community college in our serving area a $2,000 'credit' to give them access to the superhighway. We've made the superhighway accessible to business leaders, students, and educators. Now, it's time to bring residential customers on board."

Mike Murray is GTE's public affairs administrator. GTE California, headquartered in Thousand Oaks, is a wholly owned subsidiary of GTE Corp. of Stamford, Conn. The California company provides local voice, data and video telecommunication and regional toll-calling services to more than 3.1 million customers in 330 communities statewide.