CCI Systems bolsters wireless position with Total Site Services acquisition

Nick Cutler, VP of Network Solutions for CCI, said that the acquisition is complementary to its wireline business.

“One of the biggest things we saw here with the acquisition of Total Site Services is that we saw a need,” he said. “We worked together with wireless companies, and we wanted to be able to provide those types of services as well as our traditional wireline services, and we saw those fitting together very well.” 

A natural fit

As a company that traces its roots to building one of the early cable TV systems in Iron Mountain, MI, it has continued to sharpen its focus on assisting service providers in planning and building fiber networks.

To achieve this, CCI sold off select assets, including its Astrea cable arm, to Charter in 2024. “CCI has been an organization with several different, I would call them business entities,” said Troy Knuckles, EVP and COO at CCI Systems. “We are divesting ourselves of a couple of what we call off-strategy assets. We owned a cable property we called Astrea, which we sold to Charter almost two years ago.”

CCI also sold off its equipment Network Solutions Group (NSG), a Michigan-based provider of networking services and solutions focused on the broadband Service Provider end-market, to ePlus in 2023.  

“We had another equipment VAR that we sold to E Plus about a year before that, and the company now is focused on being experts at design and engineering, and I would say completing fiber-based telecommunications networks,” Knuckles said.

CCI views the acquisition of Total Site Services as part of a broader alignment of the company.

Knuckles said that Total Site Services' work mirrors what it does for its wireline clients. “Whether those towers are small cells or others, TSS offered three primary services--engineering, construction management, and site selection--which are very akin to what we do on the terrestrial side of the business,” he said. “It's kind of a natural fit.”

Under the Trump administration’s new funding rules, outlined in a June 2025 Policy Notice from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a technology-neutral, lowest-cost approach for broadband deployment is prioritized, shifting away from the previous fiber-first preference. This requires states to re-evaluate their subgrantee selection processes, conduct a new "Benefit of the Bargain Round," and consider all eligible technologies based on cost and other factors. 

Knuckles sees potential with its TSS acquisition to further pursue new broadband wireless opportunities that will arise with wireless ISPs. “Some of the new requirements that have been put into the BEAD funding program to provide broadband in rural America and underserved areas are not just doing it with fiber,” he said. “We now play in two of those primary technologies—wireline and wireless--to deliver service to those underserved areas. So that's another strategic future opportunity that this combination presents.”

However, technology and engineering are only one part of the entire story emerging from the TSS acquisition.

The combination of the two companies' employee-centric focus also aligns well. In 1985, CCI became an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) company.

“One of the other reasons why it made sense for these companies to combine was the way that the companies are managed and the culture inside the organizations,” Knuckles said. “CCI Systems is an ESOP, an employee stock-owned company, and TSS is a privately held company, so it made sense for the combination to come together to great companies with great cultures with fantastic reputations in the marketplace.”

He added that the two companies share a similar focus on customer service. “One of the important things for us to look for in an acquisition is to have that powerful reputation for being able to delight our customers,” Knuckles said.

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