The history of Call America comes in two parts. The first part is about a company founded during the break-up of AT&T and the second part is about the new Call America founded in 2002 during a renaissance of small telecommunications companies in California.

In 1983, San Luis Obispo Telecom started as a discount long distance telephone company in the wake of the divestiture of AT&T. Customers were interested in both saving money and looking for telephone services provided by a non-AT&T carrier.

San Luis Obispo Telecom was founded when Fresno based ComVest assembled a group of local investors to fund the start up of a new area telephone company. Eventually a group of 35 limited partners were brought together, and Jeff Buckingham, also a small investor in the company, was hired as San Luis Obispo Telecom's first employee. In an effort to create California's first large discount long distance telephone company, ComVest began combining many small companies around the state. Investors in San Luis Obispo Telecom had begun to look for alternatives to ComVest when they were approached by a company called Call America. Soon thereafter, San Luis Obispo Telecom became a Call America franchise. The local Call America was managed locally while the parent Call America provided billing services.

Eventually, rate changes approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) cut in half the profits of small long distance carriers. Many small companies went out of business or became unprofitable. In the case of the local Call America, Jeff Buckingham would become one of three partners taking control of the business. All billing and operations of San Luis Obispo based Call America were brought in-house and the company became completely independent when the franchising company ceased operations.

Call America always worked to be on the cutting edge of changing and evolving telecommunications technology. Voice mail was originally introduced as a means for employees to communicate with each other. As Call America promoted the new technology, many businesses soon realized the virtues of voice mail, and Call America became the primary provider in the region. In addition, Call America started an operator services division in order to provide friendly local operators for operator assisted calls from hotels and hospitals, for credit card calls and, in some cases, for businesses needing their own brand name operators.

When the Internet boom arrived, Call America brought dial up and dedicated internet services to retail customers as well as many smaller local Internet service providers (ISP). Call America was also the first company to offer one phone number for in-state and out-of-state toll free numbers (800 numbers).

All of these services allowed Call America to grow its customer base beyond San Luis Obispo County to Santa Barbara and the Monterey/Salinas region. In 1997, Call America was merged into GST Telecom. Jeff Buckingham remained with GST until 1999. In 2000, the assets of GST declared bankruptcy. Most of GST's assets were purchased by Time Warner Telecom and Andiamo telecom, formerly Dancris Telecom.

In 2002, the second part of the Call America story began when Jeff Buckingham formed Anew Telecommunications Corporation DBA Call America. His vision is to continue Call America as a San Luis Obispo-based telecommunications company serving local businesses. While Call America focuses on providing businesses with local telephone service it also focuses on offering its own employees a fun and rewarding place to work. Employees enjoy working hard for customers and customers appreciate their service and dedication.

The History of Call America is most significant for the dedicated group of employees who built the company. This incredible group of people grew into a legendary team while building a company that we were all very proud of. Many of these employees stayed on through the very frustrating experience of the GST bankruptcy and continued to serve their customers as needed even after their jobs ended. We dedicate the new Call America to the commitment and spirit of the hundreds of former Call America employees. We honor you always.