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 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.
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