Picture yourself visiting some historical city. You've been planning this trip for ages and you're finally here. You're strolling through its centre, soaking in the beauty, immersing yourself in the culture when all of a sudden some clunky, awkward, eye sore telecom tower blemishes an otherwise picture-perfect view. What a shame.

You may start to question who's to blame for ruining such an otherwise pleasant surrounding? Well, ultimately physics however, it's not that simple. Let's break this down.

Smart cities are the future of urban development. Today some 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas. That number is expected to reach 68% by 2050 i.e. 2.5b people. Keeping up with this staggering growth poses formidable challenges for municipal and community leaders although necessary to ensure a successful ROI in both societal and financial terms (Forbes, 2023; Economist Impact, 2018). Smart cities are a key socio-economic opportunity. By 2030, the value of the smart city market globally is predicted to reach $5.2t. The importance and adoption of 5G networks in this space is vital and growing. Smart cities, supported by a robust communication infrastructure, have the potential to serve as a catalyst for economic growth and social progress (Global Newswire, 2023; Deloitte, 2022).

The telecommunications industry must be contextualised as being a mature industry providing a vital service. Nonetheless, providers have little to no pricing power on increasingly commoditised connectivity and data services. The continuing advances in high-speed mobile services and internet connectivity keep spurring innovation and competition within the sector. While this bodes well for the sector's continued growth and future prospects, there is an important need for large infrastructure investments in order to keep up with technological improvements. Evolving user preferences and the emergence of new devices is translating into higher requirements for data in the B2C space. Much of the industry focus is on providing faster data services, especially in the area of high-resolution video. Cellular data is predicted to be the fastest-growing category for data usage, with a CAGR of 27% between 2022 and 2027. The driving forces are quicker and clearer services, increased connectivity, and multi-application usage (Investopedia, 2023 ; PwC, 2023).

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link

Telecom towers' biggest weakness is physics. Indeed radio frequency signals abide by the inverse square law where the intensity of the radiation is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, i.e. the farther you go the weaker the signal gets. With the number of mobile subscriptions having surpassed that of people on the planet and a growing demand for data-heavy content what's the solution and what are the prospects in our growingly interconnected world (World Economic Forum, 2023)? In a growing demand landscape the fact that phone reception is only as strong as what telecom towers can provide means that more and more towers will be necessary particularly in densely populated and growing urban areas. Thus the solution is pretty straightforward: to satisfy the growing demand for fast and reliable data connection everywhere the supply of telecom towers must increase.

Thankfully this doesn't have to automatically translate into giving up aesthetics: meet Bellantenna, a growing proposition in an exploding market. This innovative startup's modular and clean telecom tower designs allow for the development of solutions in collaboration with local municipalities providing ultimate 5G performance optimally integrating into their specific urban context. Learn how Bellantenna's network can easily scale to accomodate new sites operating at different frequencies from 4G to future standards and how its team is driving value globally through awards, partnerships and thought leadership.