DLR wrote in "Phones on Brady Bunch":
Southern California, specifically the Los Angeles extended metro area, has been a *HODGE PODGE* of General Telephone (or their predecessors) and Pacific Telephone going back to the 1920s. The GTE areas were the early dial independent telcos that had originally come about prior to the 1920s as competitors to Pacific Tel (Bell).
There was also some Continental Telephone in the mix, mostly to the east of the basic L.A. Metro Area, but Contel was taken over by GTE in the early 1990s.
The Palm Springs area further to the east is exclusively GTE.
The San Diego area to the south is exclusively Pacific Tel (Bell).
Of course today there are CLECs and wireless, but the incumbent landline telcos in southern California is still a hodgepodge of Verizon (legacy GTE and Contel) and the -NEW- "AT&T" (legacy SBC, formerly Pacific Bell Telephone).
The immediate Los Angeles Metro Area has both GTE (Verizon) and Pacific Bell Telephone (at&t) in ways that you could go back and forth between the two several times in just a short 5 or 10 mile drive! It's almost like the hodgepodge of area code splits that have occurred in Southern California in the past 15 years.
A bit of irony here -- when the breakup of the Bell System took effect in January 1984, Pacific Telesis was spun out as the holding company for both California's Pacific Bell and also Nevada Bell. The spun-off BOCs had the exclusive rights to use the "Bell" logo, while former parent company and long distance provider AT&T was forbidden the use of the "Bell" logo. AT&T went to that first "death star" logo. However, Pacific Telesis corporate chose NOT to use that 1970s era "Bell" logo. Pacific Telesis used the touchtone star logo, and applied it to its two BOCs as well, Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell.
When SBC tookover Pacific Telesis circa 1997, they did NOT "re-introduce" the "Bell" logo into California and Nevada. And over the past ten years, SBC eliminated the "Bell" logo for Southwestern Bell, as well as Ameritech which it also tookover sometime around
2000. Southern New England Telephone in Connecticut dropped the "Bell" logo with 1984 -- they started up their own unique logo which has been modified a few times since. But the "Bell" logo was also NOT "re-introduced" in SNET Connecticut when SBC purchased them circa 1998.(FWIW, Cincinnati Bell still retains the "Bell" logo)
Bell Atlantic and NYNEX have always "more or less" retained the "Bell" logo. BA kept it for both corporate and the individual BOCs (NJ Bell, Bell of PA, Delaware's Diamond State Tel, and the four Chesapeake & Potomoc Telcos). NYNEX initially did NOT use the "Bell" logo for corporate but did retain it for its two BOCs (NY Tel, New England Tel & Tel). When the NYNEX name replaced the use of the NY Tel and New England Tel names, NYNEX corporate simply adopted the "Bell" logo. And when BA and NYNEX merged circa 1997/98, both of them were using the "Bell" logo.
Verizon was formed in 2000 by the merger of Bell Atlantic (including NYENX) and GTE (including Contel; at least what GTE and later VZ have retained of old GTE and old Contel). The "Bell" logo has been retained by VZ in BA (and NYNEX) territories, but it has also been introduced into VZ-held legacy GTE (and Contel) territories when it comes to basic local telephone services, such as repair trucks, directories, monthly bills, and even telco-owned payphones. Note that VZ Wireless does NOT use the "Bell" logo, nor various aspects of VZ that are not "basic local landline telephone functions".
So, in places where SBC or Qwest (US-West) is the local telco, but there is also VZ-retained legacy GTE (or Contel) in those states, you won't find the "Bell" logo in the legacy BOC areas (SBC or Qwest), but you WILL see occurrances of the "Bell" logo in the VZ areas that had once been GTE (or Contel)!
And this includes southern California!
In areas that are at&t-once-SBC-once-Pacific Telephone, you won't find the "Bell" logo (unless there are OLD signs that haven't been taken down or fell down), but rather the recent revised at&t deathstar "marble". But in areas that are Verizon-once-GT&E-or-Continental, you will probably see the VZ logo alongside the "Bell" logo of the 1970s, such as on VZ-owned payphones, VZ-printed directories, bills for VZ local landline telephone service, etc.
As for US-West, in 1984, "corporate" did not retain the "Bell" logo, but the operating companies (Mountain Bell, Pacific NW Bell, and Northwestern Bell) retained their "Bell" logos. When the US-West corporate name replaced the old BOC names for those BOCs, the "Bell" was retained and then adopted by corporate. But when US-West and Qwest merged in 2000, the Qwest "ride the light" ribbon logo replaced the "Bell" logo, along with the Qwest name replacing the use of the US-West name.
BellSouth (Southern Bell and South Central Bell) retains the "Bell" logo (and name), but with the -NEW- 'AT&T' (SBC) about to takeover BellSouth, everything regarding 'AT&T' name and marble deathstar will replace the old names and logos.
As for the Brady Bunch, Southern California, and telcos, I always remember seeing "Bell" (Western Electric) 500 sets, "Bell" (WECO) payphones, etc., maybe Bell (WECO) Princess and Trimline phones as well. I don't ever remember seeing GT&E Automatic Electric phones or other equipment used in the Brady Bunch.
In the Los Angeles Metro area:
GTE (VZ) has Malibu, Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, Redondo, Long Beach (and virtually all of area code 562), communities to the east of Pasadena (Pasadena is AT&T-once-Pacific Bell) extending to San Bernardino, and other scattered communities.
Pacific Bell (AT&T) has Los Angeles, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Inglewood, Compton, Gardena, Anaheim and most of area codes 714 and 949 (Orange County), Riverside, and other communities.
You might be able to find some maps of California's telco service territories at the California Public Utilities Commission website,