It’s an Exciting Moment for Telecommunication Infrastructure Growth


It’s an exciting moment for the growth of telecommunication infrastructure, especially in places that aren’t New York City or Los Angeles.

While the “big three” companies will continue to fight each other in urban markets, rolling out things like 5G and battling for the best densification, there’s enormous space for the hundreds of smaller companies who are looking to serve small towns and rural environments, which became even more attractive in 2020.

“The new race is the rural race. That’s where the Tier 2s, the Tier 3s, the munis, the co-ops and the electric utilities are really playing a role,” said Tom Counts, CEO of 3-GIS. “The electric utilities have a number of factors pushing them. They’ve seen declining revenue for the last decade. They’ve been looking at, ‘How do I do revenue replacement?’ But at the same time, boom, you’ve got (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) funding that’s come out and COVID hitting everyone, and people have run to the woods. They’re sheltering in place, working from home and the race to be able to successfully allow them to do that is on, and it is on big time.

“With SSP, who has a fantastic reputation and position all across the utility space, we are finally going to be well-prepared to answer that call.”

SSP had long been hoping to work with a company like 3-GIS, though CEO Skye Perry joked that Counts at first ignored his calls.

“As we’ve grown we were primarily a service provider,” Perry said. “What we saw when we looked at 3-GIS is they come from the opposite direction as far as product-first. They’re a completely product-oriented business. They certainly do services, too, with their products, but they’ve really focused on not getting into the customization business, which is a tremendous move for a product provider.

“As we bring these (organizations) together with their complementary backgrounds and offering, as I go through and sort of articulate the synergistic opportunities between us, that probably gets me just as excited as anything. We do different things, but when we bring it together, we’re going to do all of it a whole lot better.”

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

filmmaking
Lights, Camera, Authenticity: Why Trusting Your Voice Is the Most Radical Move in Filmmaking Today
February 3, 2026

The entertainment industry is at a crossroads, where questions of access, authorship, and technological disruption are reshaping who gets to tell stories—and how those stories get made. From the rise of AI-assisted tools to ongoing conversations about representation and gatekeeping, filmmaking today is as much about identity and equity as it is about craft….

Read More
AI in energy
May the Agentforce Be With You: AI in Energy Services
February 3, 2026

Generative AI has moved past being a shiny demo and into the messy reality of enterprise operations—where data lives in different systems, customers expect instant answers, and security teams (rightfully) say “prove it.” In energy services specifically, even small efficiency gains matter: many retail energy providers operate on thin margins, and operational blind spots—billing…

Read More
Energy billing
Nightmare on Revenue Street: Energy Billing Edition
February 3, 2026

Energy billing is one of those things most people only think about when something goes wrong—an unusually high charge, a missing bill, a surprise shutoff notice, or a rate plan that suddenly doesn’t make sense. With smart meters, more complex pricing options, and different rules in regulated vs. deregulated markets, even a small breakdown…

Read More
career coaching
Work-Based Learning & Career Coaching with Strada Education: Closing the Gap Between Education and Opportunity
February 2, 2026

As higher education faces mounting pressure to demonstrate clear career outcomes, institutions are rethinking how learning connects to work and the role of career coaching in that process. Employers continue to report skills gaps, students are questioning the return on investment of a degree, and states are demanding stronger alignment between postsecondary education and…

Read More