DSL devotee

Perhaps the Best Way to describe Dave Wittwer, CEO of TDS Telecom, is to call him a DSL devotee.

As leader of one of the larger Tier 2 carriers, which serves 1.2 million customers in 30 states, he has moved to make DSL available to 87% of the people in the company's ILEC service territory. Despite a tough telecom market, DSL subscribers increased 29% between mid-2007 and mid-2008. And an impressive 84% of DSL customers take speeds above 1.5 Mb/s, including 46% who take speeds in the 3 to 6 Mb/s range.

The high percentage of customers taking higher rate service also may have contributed to the company's 8% year-over-year increase in average DSL revenue per user, which is now around $34. TDS also is launching 10 Mb/s DSL service in some key markets and offers DSL in some additional markets where it operates as a CLEC.

BUNDLES

TDS' DSL performance hasn't peaked yet, Wittwer said. “The way people use DSL is different today than yesterday, which was different from the day before,” he said. “A higher percentage of customers will find that broadband is more important in their lifestyle. There's a lot of room to continue to grow our penetration as well as the demand to go faster.”

Wittwer, who has worked for the company for more than two decades, took over at the helm in 2006. He replaced longtime CEO James Barr at a point when the company began to face a critical challenge shared by all incumbent telcos: a decline in its core phone business. Increasingly, customers were opting for alternative forms of phone service using wireless, cable or voice over IP (VoIP).

Like many telcos, TDS has turned to bundling in an effort to sell a wider range of services to its remaining base. Through a partnership with DISH Network, the company is able to deliver a triple-play offering of voice, video and data — or double-play offerings involving two of those three services.