Vantage Towers has announced it's building North Rhine-Westphalia's first sustainable wooden-structured telecommunication mast in the town of Neunkirchen (Siegerland).
In a statement, the European TowerCo said it expects the 40-meter high Ecopol tower to be erected in early 2025 in the Neunkirchen district of Wiederstein next to the NeunkirchenBurbach railway line.
The company said that the tower will enable broadband mobile communications in the region for the first time.
Vantage said that the tower has been designed to be used by multiple mobile network operators, where they can install their equipment.
The Ecopol tower is manufactured by Finnish company Ecotelligent.
"At Vantage Towers, sustainability and digitalization are not contradictions, but go very much hand in hand," said Christian Hillabrant, CEO of Vantage Towers. "I am very pleased that we are now also building a wooden-structured mast in North Rhine-Westphalia and would like to thank the municipality of Neunkirchen for its active support. The community had actively sought the construction of a wooden mast. The excellent cooperation with the municipality is a prime example of how the mobile communications rollout in rural areas can succeed."
It won't be Vantage's first wooden tower after the company built its first wooden structured telecommunication mast in Germany earlier this year.
Located in Bechtolsheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, the Ecopol tower is the first of two planned wooden structures in part of a pilot project announced in October 2022. The second tower, located in Leiwen, was due to be installed in Q3 of 2023.
The structure is built from recyclable wood, meaning it has a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to masts made from steel. That tower was also installed with help from Ecotelligent.
The company's latest tower will go live in the municipality of Neunkirchen after Vantage said it "evaluated various alternative locations in terms of the necessary network planning and technical requirements."
Vantage noted that the site owned by the municipality met all the necessary criteria, while to guarantee the long-term operation of the infrastructure, the municipality of Neunkirchen decided to offer the land for sale to the tower operator at fair market conditions. The purchase agreement is expected to be signed in October.
Germany-based Vantage Towers is one of Europe's biggest tower infrastructure companies, with more than 84,000 sites in ten countries.
The company was founded in 2020 by Vodafone. The telco agreed to sell off a stake in Vantage Towers last November, creating a new joint venture named Oak Holdings with KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
