TDS Looking to Fully Acquire Array in All-Stock Deal

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2026 – TDS is looking to fully acquire Array Digital Infrastructure, the company announced Friday.

TDS already owns about 82 percent of Array. Under TDS’s proposal, the company would exchange 0.86 shares of TDS stock for each Array share the company doesn’t already own.

Anthony Carlson, Array’s CEO, said on TDS’s earnings call that Array’s board has retained independent advisors to “carefully evaluate the proposal and make a recommendation as to what is in the best interest of Array's shareholders.” He said the company would provide updates in the future but, like TDS, wouldn’t comment further.

TDS CEO Walter Carlson, Anthony Carlson’s uncle, said the company expects the deal to “eliminate duplicative corporate costs” and “strengthen the capital structure of the enterprise, providing greater flexibility to pursue strategic investments across all our businesses, including towers and fiber.”

The deal is expected to qualify as a reorganization and be exempt from federal income tax, the companies said in a release. It would be subject to the approval of a majority of Array’s non-TDS stockholders

Walter Carlson said TDS did not intend to sell its interest in Array and wouldn’t entertain any offers for it, even if the merger fell through

TDS earnings

TDS continued its fiber expansion, adding 40,000 new passings in the first quarter and nearly 11,000 new fiber subscribers. Both of those were increases year-over-year, with the new passing total nearly tripling compared to the first quarter of 2025. 

The company upped its passing goal in February after Array closed a $1 billion spectrum sale to AT&T. The company is aiming for 2.1 million fiber passings by 2030, and currently counts 1.1 million passings. 

Ken Dixon, CEO of TDS's telecom business, said the company was still targeting 200,000-250,000 new fiber passings for 2026.

The fiber expansion is being helped by TDS’s participation in the Federal Communications COmmission’s E-ACAM program. TDS is set to receive about $85 million per year for 15 years to push fiber to about 300,000 locations in and around the company’s copper footprint.

TDS lost 7,000 copper subscribers in the quarter, for a total of 84,200, and lost 3,7000 cable subscribers, for a total of 179,100.

Dixon said the company was now able to offer multi-gig speeds throughout its cable footprint after making network upgrades. He said those markets were attractive because they “have some of the highest housing growth right now in the United States.”

Average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to $66.41. TDS didn’t break out ARPU by technology.

Revenue of $250 million was down compared to the same time last year, which executives said was largely due to leaving markets served by copper.

Asked about competition from satellite, something that’s come up on recent ISP earnings calls, especially cable operators, Walter Carlson said he thought satellite broadband would be a “substantial influence” on the industry but that he felt confident in the superiority of terrestrial networks.

TDS expects its acquisition of Granite State Communications to close in the third quarter of 2026. The acquisition should add 11,000 fiber locations to TDS’s New Hampshire footprint. 

The Wisconsin-based TDS operates in 30 states.

Array earnings

Array, formerly UScellular, the fifth largest wireless carrier in the U.S., closed a $74.8 million spectrum sale to T-Mobile on Tuesday.

The 700 MegaHertz (MHz) license sale was part of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Array’s wireless operations and customers, which closed last year. 

A further $103 million sale of 700 MHz licenses to T-Mobile is still pending at the FCC, as is a $1 billion sale of mostly 850 MHz licenses to Verizon.

Walter Carlson said those are expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2026

After transitioning to solely operating its tower portfolio, Array is still looking to sell its remaining spectrum. Most of the value there is in its C-band holdings.

There are multiple FCC auctions coming up, including in the upper C-band, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at a CTIA conference there were “options” for additional auctions in 2028. But Anthony Carlson said Array still doesn’t see that as decreasing demand for its licenses.

“We continue to believe that the C-band spectrum we hold is excellent and valuable spectrum. It's a usable property today, with an ecosystem to support it,” he said. “We’re not going to be a forced seller in these circumstances.”

On the tower side, Anthony Carlson said only one total tenant churned in the entire first quarter.

Array has 4,452 towers, about 2,000 of which will have long-term T-Mobile leases as part of its wireless operation acquisition. The carrier has committed to some, but others are being used on an interim basis.

Once the decision is finalized in January 2028, Array expects anywhere from 800-1,800 towers will be tenantless. Anthony Carlson said the company had already started decommissioning “a subset of sites with no path to economic viability”

Tower rental revenue of $48.1 million was up 98 percent from the year prior, including both committed and interim T-Mobile sites and accounting for the loss of Dish. The metric was up 6 percent year-over-year excluding the new T-Mobile sites. 

Dish was a former (relatively small) customer of Array’s and told the tower company that after an EchoStar spectrum sale it considered itself to be excused from its lease. Anthony Carlson said Array was taking “actions it deems necessary” on that front. 

Array’s Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission did not say Array had sued Dish like other tower and infrastructure firms have.

Correction: A previous version of this story said TDS operated in 27 states. It operates in 30. A precious version also said TDS would receive $90 million in E-ACAM funding. The number is now $85 million.