Verizon California
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Verizon California, Inc. is an entirely separate company from Verizon West Coast, Inc., a GTE operating company in Northwest California. See GTE Northwest.
| Verizon California, Inc. | |
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| Type | Private (Subsidiary of Verizon) |
| Founded | 1929 |
| Headquarters | Thousand Oaks, CA, USA |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Products | Local Telephone Service |
| Parent | GTE (until 2000) Verizon (2000-present) |
| Website | www.verizon.com |
Verizon California, Inc. is a Verizon operating company providing telephone service in former GTE regions. This included Southern California cities such as Long Beach, Seal Beach Lakewood, Norwalk and its headquarters city of Santa Monica.
GTE was originally the largest non-Bell System telephone company, and the number two telephone service provider in the United States. It would later merge with the number three (non-Bell system) provider, Continental Telephone, and then eventually merging with former Bell System member Bell Atlantic.
GTE was made up of many small mom and pop telephone companies that had been purchased to form the General Telephone System, this led the California Public Utilities Commission, in the mid 1960's to proclaim GTE "the worst telephone company in California, bar none." However in the years following the report GTE replaced most of its switching equipment, and much of its plant in Southern California. This led to a higher level of service compared to Pacific Bell.
When the 213 area code was being split into 213 and 310, Pacific Bell, then the manager of the 213 area code, chose to split the 213 area code in such a fashion that every single prefix that served a GTE customer was moved into the new 310 area code, while many of Pacific Bell's customers were not so inconvenienced.
GTE California, had completed the transition from mechanical to electronic switching by 1992.
GTE California has always served California. However, it has undergone some changes:
- In 1993, GTE purchases Continental Telephone (ConTel), and ConTel of California, Inc., which also served parts of Nevada & Arizona, is absorbed into GTE California, Inc.
- In 2000, GTE is purchased by Bell Atlantic, becoming Verizon. GTE California is renamed "Verizon California, Inc."
Verizon California, Inc. still serves former GTE and ConTel regions in California, Nevada, and Arizona.
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