TowerXchange Meetup Europe returned to the Intercontinental O2 in April, bringing together 300+ of the people driving the tower and broader wireless industry.

The event opened with a series of fireside chats with Christian Hillabrant, CEO of Vantage Towers, Marco Patuano, curently Chairman of EWIA as well as Cellnex CEO, Abdulrahman Almoaiqel, Chief Commercial Officer of TAWAL and Diego Galli, General Manager of INWIT, offering delegates a wide-ranging view of the trends shaping the tower sector across Europe.

• Christian Hillabrant reflected on a transformational year for Vantage Towers, highlighting the company's "back to basics" strategy following its move to private ownership under KKR, GIP and Vodafone. Hillabrant emphasised emerging opportunities in small cells and in-building solutions, noting that small cell demand is beginning to grow in markets like Spain, Ireland and Germany, albeit still at an earlier stage than in the US. He underlined that healthy MNOs are critical to a strong tower industry, supporting market consolidation where it strengthens operator finances. Hillabrant also pointed to Germany’s new €500bn infrastructure fund as a major opportunity for Vantage to extend rural and rail corridor coverage.
• Marco Patuano, Chairman of the European Wireless Infrastructure Association (EWIA), praised the European regulators' growing support for infrastructure investment. He argued that towercos have proven vital to enabling operator investment by freeing up capital, and that the next phase would see towercos move beyond passive ownership into more active infrastructure partnerships, including potential involvement in active equipment financing. Patuano also warned of the need for predictable, investment-friendly regulation to unlock private capital for Europe’s digital future.
• Representing TAWAL, Abdulrahman Almoaiqel shared how the company has spent two years integrating European assets across three countries. Al Moaiqel said Tawal is seeing growing demand for adjacencies like network as a service and distributed solutions, reflecting a trend where operators seek new services beyond traditional tower leasing. TAWAL is also importing operational best practices from its Middle Eastern operations, including models for shared field services and advanced public Wi-Fi and in-building systems, adapted to European market conditions.
• Finally, Diego Galli, General Manager of INWIT, celebrated a strong year for the Italian market leader, with 900 new towers built and increased indoor coverage by 30% to 160 locations. Galli discussed Inwit’s push into smart cities, referencing the Rome Smart City project to deliver integrated 5G, IoT and Wi-Fi across public spaces and metro systems. He also outlined Inwit's ambitions to expand into areas like solar energy production, ground lease buyouts and eventually RAN-as-a-service and edge computing to diversify revenues while maintaining a strong focus on organic tower growth.

Additional sessions across the two days of TowerXchange Meetup Europe addressed other tough questions in the tower and wireless access world.

Return on capital for tower operators has been a key challenge in recent times, and a panel of senior investors and advisors discussed how backers are leveraging new technologies such as automation and AI-supported management systems to transform site operations and investment strategies.

Small cells and satellites also came into focus, particularly to service transport use cases. A combination of small cell, edge computing and LEO satellites was put forward as a key part of ensuring the always-on coverage needed for road and rail corridors, with small cells also helping expand network coverage in dense urban environments where macro towers are struggling to meet capacity demand.

As well as the insights on stage, TowerXchange Meetup Europe also served up a strong offering of networking opportunities – giving its attendees the industry knowledge and face-to-face contacts they need to get business done.