'Survivor' McLeodUSA enters new markets - Dallas Business Journal:

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The company, which is based in Iowa but has its CEO and othert key execs inNorthb Texas, has broadened its local territor to include Plano, Garland, Irving, Lewisville and parts of Rowlett and Wylie. With those communities, the compan y now operates in 14area cities. It also providees service in Dallas, Fort Worth, Allen, Euless, Newark and Richardson. McLeodUSA declined to disclosse how many customers it has locally or how many it has signee up throughthe expansion, but does say the growtg gives it access to abou 9,000 of the small and medium-sizexd businesses it targets. Its customers use both phone and high-speexd data services, spending an average of about $500 to $5,00 per location.
McLeodUSA once provided a broad range of telecoj services to an array ofcustomerr segments, from consumers and businessews of all sizes to other carriers and Internef service providers. But, according to Securitie s and Exchange Commission the company wound up with a large base of smalland low-margihn customers, which spent an average of $200 or less per It went through two stints in bankruptcy.
When it emergeds the last time, in early 2006, telecom industry veteran Roycee Holland took over as CEO andchanged McLeodUSA'zs customer focus toward the bigger Holland, who previously ran Dallas-basecd , also reconfigured the company's sale s and marketing strategy, moving away from telemarketing and telephone directory advertising and toward direct salese and sales-agent "channels." He says the company'ss current customers have high margins -- topping 50% -- comparerd to the 25% to 40% that McLeodUSA's clientzs had before. "They're one of the says Jeff Kagan, an independenft telecom analyst located in theAtlanta area.
In September, McLeodUSA agree to merge with Fairpoint, N.Y.-based in a deal valuer at around $557 That transaction is scheduled to closr in the first quarter of this Holland will leave the company as part ofthe