It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc, and is the seventh-largest local exchange carrier in the U.S.[1] TDS Telecom offers telephone, broadband Internet and television services to customers in 30 states and more than 900 rural and suburban communities, though it also serves some urban metropolitan communities.

With this funding TDS is on a ten-year push to bring high speed internet to the furthest reaches of its rural serving areas.

Depending on location, the vast majority of TDS customers in eligible rural areas are expected to receive broadband speeds of 25 Mbit/s download and 3 Mbit/s upload (25/3).

In less rural areas, TDS provides much higher broadband speeds, from 100 Mbps to 8 Gbps.

Unlike Telecom, Metrocom used a deal brokered by Tommy Thompson to allow for local phone service competition on AT&T's lines in exchange for long distance plan selling rights over landline.