The almost 80,000 tower market is home to five towercos, the newest one being Phoenix Tower International (PTI) which entered the market in end 2023 by acquiring Novec. While little M&A activity is expected on the market,  new tower build rates are high. Several network upgrade and roll-out programmes are underway which are funded by both private and state funding. Vantage Towers and Deutsche Funkturm have started deploying infrastructure to eliminate white spots and improve rural coverage with funding being provided by the German Mobile Communications Infrastructure Agency (MIG). A big tower deployment programme involving the construction and upgrade of almost 6,000 towers by Deutsche Funkturm (DFMG) is also underway.

Deployment of the tower infrastructure of the country’s newest MNO 1&1 which was delayed by Vantage Towers is also on-going despite being behind deadlines.

American Tower’s German portfolio which it acquired from Telxius in 2021 includes a BTS pipeline of 2,400 sites for Telefonica. In addition, Vantage Towers will be working together with train operator Deutsche Bahn (DB), Ericsson, O2 Telefónica to provide 5G connectivity along railways in a EUR6.4 mn project fully funded by the state to support the initiative, dubbed Gigabit Innovation Track (GINT).

5G Synergiewerk, a small player with 50 sites and with big ambitions, is slowly expanding its footprint in and around urban areas delivering sites for Telefonica and Vodafone.

A few European Union-co-funded projects aimed at delivering 5G connectivity and managed services along transport corridors present smaller, yet attractive opportunities for towercos. One of them is the 5G Autobahn to Autoroute (5G A2A) project, a 60-kilometre strech between the towns of Metz in France to Saarbrücken in Germany wich involves infarstrcutrure deployment by Vantage Towers in Gemrnay and TOTEM in France in cooperation with MNOs Orange and Telefónica. Another one is the 5G CarolinaPlus project between Germany and the Czech Republic which involves 5G infrastructure across a total of 85 km and 9 border crossings through 50 upgraded and 22 new high-cell towers to be deployed by Deutsche Funkturm in cooperation with T-Mobile Czech Republic. 

Beyond providing power as a “pass through”, some towercos are exploring onsite power generation with Vantage Towers starting a project with wind energy start-up MOWEA to equip towers with wind turbines, planning to install them on 52 of its sites.