la Frontera In the News

Round Rock Leader

March 27, 2003

Grande grabs La Frontera from TXU

Grande Communications has closed its deal with TXU Communications to acquire all rights to provide Internet and telephone services to select commercial and residential customers of TXU Communications, Grande announced recently.

Grande agreed in January 2003 to purchase the rights to provide high-speed Internet, and local and long-distance telephone services to retail accounts previously managed by TXU Communications.

Grande's new customers include all commercial and multi-family accounts of the La Frontera real estate development in Round Rock, as well as nearly 30 up-scale, multi-family residential communities throughout Houston. The deal also includes approximately 15,000 commercial and residential lines in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin metropolitan markets. Grande also acquired a state-of-the-art DMS-500 switch in Austin.

"This acquisition allows us to introduce the Grande brand to Texas' largest markets well ahead of schedule while accelerating our progress within our Central Texas markets," said Grande Vice Chairman and CEO William E. Morrow.

Earlier this month, Grande announced the acquisition of approximately 3,000 route miles of fiber throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana from Austin-based C3 Communications, allowing Grande to expand its product and service offering to its retail and wholesale customer base.

"It's been a busy and lucrative first quarter 2003 for us," said Morrow. "Within one week, we closed on two important acquisitions that significantly and strategically accelerate our growth rate."

Headquartered in San Marcos, Grande Communications is building a ground-up, deep-fiber broadband network to homes and businesses.

Grande delivers high-speed Internet, local and long-distance telephone and cable television services over its own advanced broadband network to communities in Texas.

Grande's service area for bundled broadband services includes Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio, Waco, Corpus Christi, Midland and Odessa.

In July 2000, the company purchased Thrifty Call, an integrated network service provider for wholesale telephony and data, and in June 2002, Grande acquired ClearSource, a similar broadband service provider operating in Corpus Christi, Midland, Odessa and Waco.