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T-Mobile Announces Plans for New Customer Service Center in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Posted on: Thursday, 18 August 2005, 00:00 CDT

Aug. 17--Wireless carrier T-Mobile USA plans to create nearly 800 new jobs as it puts a $16 million customer-service center in Chattanooga.

The company, based in Bellevue, Wash., is to announce today that the 80,000-square-foot call center will be built at the corner of Highway 153 and Lee Highway.

"The company is growing very dramatically," said John Birrer, T-Mobile's vice president of customer service operations. "We've got to grow our U.S. facilities."

The T-Mobile project is the biggest new firm recruited to Hamilton County since 1997, when AT&T announced it was bringing up to 1,000 jobs to the area. AT&T's call center, later sold to Covergys, now employs about 190 people.

If T-Mobile hires all its planned workers, the company would become one of the largest employers in the Chattanooga area.

The company plans to start with about 120 to 150 workers, and it will be about a year before T-Mobile hires the 800 anticipated employees, Mr. Birrer said.

Most jobs, with a starting base of $9 an hour, will be full time and come with a benefits package, he said.

Mr. Birrer said the company intends to start construction this summer and would like the business to answer its first call in the initial half of 2006.

County Mayor Claude Ramsey said company officials liked the high-visibility site, the area's work force and the business environment.

"It's a good lick," he said.

Mayor Ron Littlefield said the development "bodes well for the continued revitalization of that portion of Highway 153."

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said T-Mobile is the type of company officials want to attract to Chattanooga.

"The innovation and leadership T-Mobile has bought to the communications business makes them a perfect match for the Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor," Rep. Wamp said.

Trevor Hamilton, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce's vice president for economic development, said T-Mobile is "the first real home run" for the business group's $9 million "Tell the World" recruiting effort that began two years ago.

"It came together over many months going back to last year," he said.

T-Mobile USA is the fourth largest wireless phone operator in the United States with about 18.2 million subscribers, adding about 972,000 customers in the recently completed second quarter.

Cingular leads the pack with about 50 million subscribers.

An Atlanta developer, Holder Properties, will construct the T-Mobile building, and the company will lease the site, Mr. Birrer said. The facility is to be built on a vacant site purchased from several landowners and will hold a gym, TV lounge and Internet connections for employees on break, he said.

Officials with the business hope to begin hiring management staff by the end of this year, he said. Application will be available soon at the company's Web site, www.t-mobile.com, Mr. Birrer said.

Mr. Hamilton said T-Mobile did a lot of searching before deciding on Hamilton County.

He said the company, a subsidiary of Europe's largest telephone business, Deutsche Telekom AG, is receiving a state and local incentives package.

Matt Kisber, Tennessee's Department of Economic and Community Development commissioner, said the company was wooed through a collaborative approach, and the state anticipates helping T-Mobile grow and prosper.

Mr. Hamilton said the city will take ownership of a road that will be built from Lee Highway into the site. Also, a traffic signal will be placed at the location.

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DT, DTE,

Source: Chattanooga Times/Free Press

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