Vantage Towers announced that it will host the network equipment of LoRaWAN IoT company Netmore Group across Portugal. LoRaWAN, or low power wide area network, sensing technology equipment will be hosted on Vantage Towers sites to support Netmore Group's Network-as-a-Service offering as it expands and densifies its network in the region.
Netmore offers a Network-as-a-Service solution which enables Utilities, IoT application providers, and device manufacturers to offer machine to machine connectivity without deploying their own infrastructure.
LoRaWAN base stations and radios are significantly smaller than GSM equipment and much lower power. This makes them easier to onboard onto telecom towers and additional tenants, however the low space requirements and lower investment grade enjoyed by non-GSM connectivity providers limits the revenue potential for towercos.
Portugal loses nearly a third of its water through leaks, theft or illicit use. To combat these challenges, water utilities are adopting Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and within those initiatives, deploying LoRaWAN technology for water metering, leak detection, and to collect data identifying usage irregularities.
This is not the first partnership in which a towerco has enabled Netmore's expansion. In 2022, Netmore LoRaWAN expanded to Finland through a roaming agreement with Digita. In October Netmore announced its 20 site trial with Cellnex UK was expanding to cover a further 200 locations.
Many towercos now work with non-traditional tenants to drive incremental revenues on their tower networks. As towercos continue to feel the pressure from a higher interest rate environment the addition of IoT tenancies helps the individual tower economics of a particular site.
