"Me and my wood." That's probably what radio mast operator Vantage Towers thought, too, and erected the first sustainable mobile phone mast in Bechtolsheim, Rhineland-Palatinate.
It shouldn't really be a problem to have reception everywhere with your smartphone. Whether you're in the mountains of Switzerland, in the flat countryside of Holland or somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Estonia. Everywhere? No, in Germany I'm not the only one who still experiences too many places where I look at my mobile and think to myself: Argh, no network again. In order to make further progress with network expansion and, above all, to make it more sustainable, Vantage Towers has now implemented the first step of a two-stage pilot project announced in October 2022.
With around 19,400 transmitters, the company is one of Germany's leading radio mast operators and has a total of 82,000 radio masts in ten European countries. In collaboration with the Finnish start-up Ecotelligent, it has erected the first Ecopol radio mast made of wood in Bechtolsheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, south of Mainz. A second radio mast of this type is expected to be erected in Leiwen, east of Trier, in the third quarter of 2023, according to the company. Further locations - also in other federal states - are being planned.
The individual wooden modules ... Source: Vodafone
... are put together during construction. Source: Vodafone
Thanks to their wooden construction, the Ecopol transmission masts are said to produce up to 50 per cent less CO₂ than comparable radio masts made of concrete or steel. They consist of ten-metre-long modules that stand on a concrete base. The hollow construction protects cables, junction boxes and other equipment from the weather and vandalism through the tower wall. A weather-resistant protective layer is designed to protect the wood from environmental influences. The telecommunication towers are expected to have a service life of 30 years. The coating can be chosen in any colour to blend in even better with the existing landscape. This design increases the acceptance of mobile communications infrastructure among the population, the manufacturer claims.
The wooden mast has even persuaded critics to rethink. I am delighted that we have found this solution for mobile communications coverage in Bechtolsheim in dialogue with Vantage Towers. Perhaps this will also make us a role model for how mobile network expansion can succeed in rural areas.
Dieter Mann, Ortsbürgermeister von Bechtolsheim
There was a very long dispute about the construction of the mobile phone mast in the small village, as can be seen from a report by Südwestrundfunk. The current smaller wooden construction is ultimately a compromise that the local council agreed to and thus cleared the way for the construction. A citizens' petition against the radio mast had previously failed for formal reasons.
In summer 2021, Italy's first wooden telecommunications tower was built near Milan on the busy A51 motorway. Source: Ecotelligent Oy
Ecotelligent previously had a wooden radio mast erected near Milan in summer 2021 in collaboration with Inwit, Italy's largest radio tower operator. Gyöngyi Mátray, Managing Director of Ecotelligent, says that he wants to offer a responsible and more sustainable alternative for the construction of digital infrastructure with timber construction and thus contribute to reducing CO₂ emissions during the planned Europe-wide 5G expansion. He told the online magazine for the Finnish forestry industry forest.fi that a customer would pay about the same price for a wooden tower as for a conventional transmission mast.
"We do not currently have any wooden masts in use for mobile phone systems," Swisscom, Switzerland's largest telecommunications company, told Galaxus. "The maintenance effort is greater with wood and the durability of the material is lower compared to today's masts. However, we are looking into this in terms of sustainability." Salt Mobile responded to an enquiry by saying that the use of wooden radio masts is not currently being considered either.
