Verizon has had a long legacy build out in CA, AFAIK. T-Mobile has the old PacBell Wireless network (legacy/very well built out) Sprint has it pretty much the best in urban CA, as they have added CDMA onto iDEN sites (purchase of Nextel)
AT&T (was Cingular) bought AT&T Wireless, which had a weak network, and their expansion came after NIMBYism. -- Canada = Hollywood North