Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. is a Chicago-based telecommunications service company providing wireless products and services; cable and wireline broadband, TV and voice services; and hosted and managed services to approximately 6 million customers nationwide through its business units TDS Telecom and U.S. Cellular (NYSE: USM).

[3] The company began as a rural phone company in Wisconsin in 1969.

In 1983 it founded U.S. Cellular as a subsidiary.

In 2001, it acquired Straus Printing Company and combined it with a previously acquired printing company, Suttle Press, to form Suttle-Straus as another subsidiary.

[4] LeRoy T. Carlson, the founder of TDS, died in May 2016 at the age of 100.