Verizon California
| Private (Subsidiary of Frontier) | |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1929 |
| Products | Local Telephone Service |
| Parent |
GTE (until 2000) Verizon (2000-2016) Frontier (2016-present) |
| Website | Verizon California |
Frontier California, Inc. is a Frontier Communications-owned operating company providing telephone service in former Verizon regions. This included Southern California cities such as Long Beach, Seal Beach, Lakewood, Norwalk and Santa Monica.
GTE was originally the largest non-Bell System telephone company, and the number-two telephone service provider in the United States. It entered California by acquiring the Associated Telephone Company in 1926. It would later merge with Western Utilities Corporation and its affiliates in 1964; the number-three (non-Bell System) provider, Continental Telephone (ConTel), in 1991; and former Bell System member Bell Atlantic in 2000.
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-1960s 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 remained in the 213 area code.
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