INWIT, an Italian infrastructure business, has announced the deployment of its first wooden mobile telecommunications tower, made entirely of sustainable materials, as part of a two-year environmental strategy. The tower is located northeast of Milan, next to a large park and a major motorway.
The mobile tower’s construction is composed of glued laminated wood, entirely sustainable and circular material, an alternative to steel. The tower is 40 meters tall and has four walkways to position the antennas and radio connections of the hosting operators.
The tower is located next to the Est delle Cave Park and will provide cellular network coverage in the region, as well as emergency telephone services, which are especially important for highway traffic on Milan’s A51 Tangenziale Est ring road, close to the tower.
INWIT hopes to leverage the project to assist in restoring the park by applying the finest environmental and landscape integration choices for the infrastructure. Of course, wood is a perfectly plausible material for building mobile towers, but it is likely to be more expensive than standard steel, so any future deployment seems to be on a modest scale.
INWIT chief executive Giovanni Ferigo, commented: “Our choice aims to be responsible and sustainable. With an increasingly more connected future on the horizon, more towers will be needed to support telecom 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. We are convinced that glued laminated timber is an excellent choice in this regard, to create an environment that is increasingly more connected, sustainable and circular”.
