TDS Telecom is an American telecommunications company with headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc, and is the seventh-largest local exchange carrier in the U.S. TDS Telecom offers telephone, broadband Internet and television services to customers in thirty states and more than 900 rural and suburban communities, though it also serves some urban metropolitan communities. It also sells businesses communications services including VoIP phone service, dedicated broadband Internet and hosted-managed services. With headquarters in Madison, TDS Telecom operates TDS Broadband LLC, and BendBroadband, and TDS Metrocom, LLC. Combined, the company employs nearly 3,300 people. TDS Telecom and parent company TDS Inc. are celebrating 50 years in business in 2019. On January 1, 2019, the contract between TDS and Nexstar Media, which allowed for TDS to rebroadcast television networks owned by Nexstar, expired, and on February 1, 2019, a new contract was signed. TDS president Jim Butman explained to affected viewers- over 50,000 of them in more than five US states- that the impasse was caused by unreasonable demands from Nexstar, including new rates that were more than double what TDS was previously paying. This was the largest and most protracted dispute in the company's history.