INWIT installs wooden mobile tower in sustainability bid

Yesterday, Italian tower operator INWIT announced that it had deployed its first wooden mobile tower, replacing an existing steel structure. 

 

The tower was deployed next to a major park in the city of Milan and is made of 100% recyclable laminated wood. The wooden structure is glued together, is 40m tall, and has been built with walkways to ensure ease of access for engineers. 

 

The structure will provide mobile coverage to the surrounding area, including emergency telephone services for the nearby motorway.

 

Part of the motivation here appears to be the reclassification of the park itself as an “ecological corridor”, hence INWIT being keen to demonstrate its own sustainable credentials in this context.

 

“Our choice aims to be responsible and sustainable,” said INWIT chief executive Giovanni Ferigo. “With an increasingly more connected future on the horizon, more towers will be needed to support telecoms operators. It is, therefore, our duty to come up with alternative materials that reduce the environmental impact throughout the life cycle of the infrastructure and that are more harmonious with the landscape and urban surroundings.”

 

From this statement, it sounds as though INWIT intends to deploy more of these laminated wooden towers, though no details of deployment plans were included. 

 

Of course, wood is a perfectly reasonable material with which to build mobile masts, but it is likely expensive compared with traditional steel, so any future rollout seems likely to be targeted and small in scale.