CenturyTel of Missouri, LLC is a telephone operating company owned by CenturyLink

CenturyLink

CenturyLink, Inc. is a United States telecommunications firm, headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana. The company, founded as Central Telephone & Electronics Corporation in 1968, later changed its name to Century Telephone Enterprises, Inc. in 1971, and then was called CenturyTel, Inc. from 1999 to 2010...

 that provides local telephone service in Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

. The cities served by the company include Branson

Branson, Missouri

Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....

 and Columbia

Columbia, Missouri

Columbia is the fifth-largest city in Missouri, and the largest city in Mid-Missouri. With a population of 108,500 as of the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, a region of 164,283 residents. The city serves as the county seat of Boone County and as the...

.

The company was established in 2002 upon CenturyTel's purchase of lines from Verizon Communications

Verizon Communications

Verizon Communications Inc. is a global broadband and telecommunications company and a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average...

. The lines in Missouri were transferred from GTE Midwest

GTE Midwest

GTE Midwest, Inc. was a GTE operating company formed in 1993 upon the split off of some GTE local telephone operations from GTE North. GTE Midwest served Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota, and included the former operations of Contel in Iowa and Missouri....

, which was originally an operating company of GTE

GTE

GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System....

. That company was dissolved following the 2002 sale.