Who owns US Cellular? Ownership structure explained (2026)

For most of its life, US Cellular was the largest regional wireless carrier in the United States, serving customers across rural and midsize markets that the national giants often overlooked. Its ownership was never in doubt. From the day it started operating, the company was a controlled subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems, a Chicago telecom holding company built by the Carlson family. Public shareholders could buy the stock, but they never had a real say in how the business was run.

That structure held for more than four decades, and then the company changed shape entirely. In 2024 and 2025, US Cellular agreed to sell its wireless operations and most of its spectrum to T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T. When the largest of those deals closed in August 2025, the company stopped being a wireless carrier and became a tower and spectrum owner. It even changed its name to Array Digital Infrastructure. Understanding who owns US Cellular means tracing a control chain that starts with public investors, runs through TDS, and ends with a family voting trust, and understanding how the T-Mobile sale is reshaping what the company actually does.

This article uses "US Cellular" to describe the business and its history, and notes where the current entity now operates under the Array Digital Infrastructure name.

US Cellular, legally United States Cellular Corporation, began operations on December 23, 1983. It was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company was not started by independent entrepreneurs. It was created by Telephone and Data Systems, a rural telephone and cellular holding company that LeRoy T. Carlson had been building since the late 1960s. TDS assembled cellular licenses across the country, then placed the wireless business into a dedicated subsidiary, United States Cellular Corporation, with TDS executive Rudy Hornacek as its first president.

The company sold shares to the public in 1988 but stayed firmly under TDS control, which kept a stake above 80%. For decades US Cellular operated as the fifth largest wireless carrier in the country, competing against Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile with a focus on customer service and coverage in smaller markets. The stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker USM.

The business changed fundamentally in 2025. After selling its wireless operations to T-Mobile, the company renamed itself Array Digital Infrastructure and moved its stock to the ticker AD. The retained business owns roughly 4,400 wireless towers, spectrum licenses, and minority interests in other wireless partnerships. Its market capitalization was near $3 billion in mid-2026. The company that once sold phone plans now mainly leases tower space to the carriers that used to be its rivals.

US Cellular is a public company that has always operated under majority control. Its shares trade on the NYSE, and anyone can buy them, but the float has never carried meaningful voting power. Telephone and Data Systems has owned a controlling stake since the company began, and that stake has stayed remarkably stable. As of 2025, TDS owned about 83% of the common stock, and after the wireless sale it held roughly 82% of the renamed Array Digital Infrastructure. TDS has the votes to elect every director and controls about 96% of the voting power on most other matters.

US Cellular has no conventional founders holding equity, because it was carved out of a parent rather than launched by individuals. The controlling owner is the corporate parent itself. Telephone and Data Systems, which trades on the NYSE under the ticker TDS, holds the large majority stake and the concentrated voting power. Public shareholders own the rest, split between everyday retail investors and institutional funds that track the stock.

This is the first link in a two-step control chain. US Cellular is controlled by TDS. TDS, in turn, is controlled by the Carlson family. That means the ultimate owners of US Cellular are not the public shareholders whose money funds the business, but the family that sits atop the parent company. The setup mirrors how other family-controlled carriers concentrate power at the top, similar in spirit to the founder control that shapes how T-Mobile makes money under Deutsche Telekom.

Control of TDS, and therefore of US Cellular, runs through a family voting trust. TDS uses a dual-class share structure. Regular common shares carry one vote each, while Series A common shares carry ten votes each. The Carlson family holds most of the Series A shares inside a voting trust that was created in 1989. Through that trust, the family controls a majority of TDS voting power even though it owns a much smaller share of the economics.

Filings have shown the TDS voting trust controlling roughly 57% of the company's total voting power, while holding around 96% of the Series A shares. The trustees are members of the Carlson family. This is the mechanism that keeps control in family hands across generations. Public investors supply most of the capital, but the Series A structure ensures they cannot outvote the trust.

The table below summarizes the ownership stakes and the transactions that reshaped the company. These are ownership and deal events rather than venture funding rounds, because US Cellular was a corporate subsidiary rather than a startup that raised capital from investors.

Because TDS holds most of the equity, the public float is relatively small, and institutional ownership is concentrated among large index and asset managers rather than strategic backers. Firms such as BlackRock and The Vanguard Group typically appear among the largest outside holders, owning the stock through their index funds. These holders provide capital and liquidity, but they do not shape strategy. The controlling votes stay with TDS and, above it, the Carlson trust.

The most important actor in US Cellular's ownership is not a person but the parent company, Telephone and Data Systems. TDS appoints the board and sets strategy. Within that structure, the Carlson family holds the ultimate control through the voting trust, and family members have long served on the boards of both TDS and US Cellular.

On the operating side, Laurent "LT" Therivel served as president and CEO from June 2020 through July 31, 2025. He joined from AT&T, where he had run the company's Mexico business, and he led US Cellular through the strategic review that ended in the T-Mobile sale. When that deal closed, Therivel separated from the company.

Douglas W. Chambers, previously the chief financial officer, became president and CEO effective July 31, 2025, initially in an interim capacity. He now leads the retained business, Array Digital Infrastructure, which centers on the tower portfolio, spectrum holdings, and minority wireless investments. The board and its committees remain controlled by TDS appointees, so the key decisions about the company's future continue to run up the chain to the parent and the family trust.

The defining event in US Cellular's recent history was the sale of its wireless business to T-Mobile. The companies announced the roughly $4.4 billion deal on May 28, 2024. It combined about $2.6 billion in cash with roughly $1.7 billion in debt that T-Mobile assumed. Because the transaction removed a regional competitor from an already concentrated wireless market, it drew close scrutiny from the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. Regulators eventually cleared it, in part because US Cellular argued it could no longer compete at national scale. The deal closed on August 1, 2025. The economics of scale that drove this outcome are the same forces at work in how Verizon makes money and how AT&T makes money, the two other national carriers that bought pieces of US Cellular's spectrum.

US Cellular did not sell everything to one buyer. Alongside the T-Mobile deal, it agreed to sell spectrum licenses to AT&T for about $1.0 billion and to Verizon for about $1.0 billion. Selling core assets to three of its largest competitors raised questions about further consolidation of airwaves among the national carriers. Each transaction required its own regulatory approval, and the spectrum sales continued to close into 2025 and 2026. The result is that the assets that once powered a standalone regional carrier are now spread across the three biggest players in the industry.

The newest ownership question concerns the minority public shareholders. On May 8, 2026, TDS proposed to acquire all of the Array Digital Infrastructure shares it does not already own in an all-stock merger. Under the proposal, each public share would convert into 0.86 of a TDS share, and the plan assumes a special dividend of about $10.40 per share, or roughly $900 million, paid to Array holders before closing. Deals in which a controlling parent buys out minority investors often draw legal challenges over price and fairness. Array's board formed a special committee with independent advisers to review the offer on behalf of minority holders. The proposal was not final as of mid-2026.

Ownership explains why US Cellular could be sold and reshaped so quickly. Because TDS controlled about 83% of the shares and nearly all of the voting power, the parent could steer the company into a sale without needing to win over public investors. A more widely held company would have faced a harder path. Here, the decision effectively sat with TDS and the Carlson family, and the outcome followed their strategic view that the wireless business could not compete at scale against the national carriers.

The two-step control chain also shapes who benefits. Public shareholders own a minority of the economics and bear the market risk, but the controlling family captures the strategic upside through its grip on TDS. When TDS proposed to buy out the remaining public shares in 2026, that proposal put a spotlight on the tension built into the structure. Minority investors have to trust that a controlling parent will offer them a fair price, even though the parent sits on both sides of the table.

For customers, the ownership change matters because it ended US Cellular as a wireless carrier. The company that once prided itself on serving rural and midsize markets handed those customers to T-Mobile. What remains is an infrastructure business that leases towers to carriers rather than selling phone plans to consumers. To value a business that has shifted from selling services to owning hard assets, analysts lean on tools like a business valuation calculator and a discounted cash flow model, because the earnings now come from long-term lease contracts rather than subscriber growth.

Finally, the structure is a reminder that a public listing does not always mean public control. US Cellular traded on the NYSE for decades, yet its direction was set by a parent company and a family trust the entire time. Ownership, not the stock ticker, decided the company's fate.

US Cellular is majority owned by Telephone and Data Systems (TDS), a Chicago telecom holding company that has held a controlling stake of roughly 82% to 83% since the business began operating in 1983. TDS controls about 96% of the voting power and elects all of the directors. TDS itself is controlled by the Carlson family through a voting trust, so the ultimate owners are the Carlsons, not the public shareholders.

Yes. Its shares have traded on the New York Stock Exchange for decades, originally under the ticker USM. After the company sold its wireless business to T-Mobile in 2025 and renamed itself Array Digital Infrastructure, the stock began trading under the ticker AD. Despite the public listing, TDS has always held majority control.

US Cellular was not founded by independent entrepreneurs. It was created by Telephone and Data Systems, which LeRoy T. Carlson began building in 1969. TDS carved out its wireless licenses into a new subsidiary, United States Cellular Corporation, which started operating in December 1983 with TDS executive Rudy Hornacek as its first president.

T-Mobile bought US Cellular's wireless operations and a large share of its spectrum, not the entire company. The roughly $4.4 billion deal closed on August 1, 2025. US Cellular kept its towers, its remaining spectrum, and its minority wireless investments, and it renamed that retained business Array Digital Infrastructure. US Cellular also sold additional spectrum to AT&T and Verizon for about $1.0 billion each.

Douglas W. Chambers became president and CEO effective July 31, 2025, after serving as chief financial officer. He leads the retained company, Array Digital Infrastructure. Laurent Therivel held the role from June 2020 until the T-Mobile sale closed, then departed the company.

In 2026, ownership became the central story. On May 8, 2026, TDS proposed to acquire all of the Array Digital Infrastructure shares it did not already own in an all-stock merger, offering 0.86 of a TDS share for each public share plus a large special dividend. The move would take the business fully private under TDS. Array's board formed a special committee to review the offer for minority shareholders, and the deal was not final as of mid-2026.