Cellnex chooses Italy as the location for a new ‘excellence center’

It will spread best practices throughout the Group

Rome-Barcelona, Tuesday, 1st March 2016 – Cellnex Telecom -the European leader in telecommunications and broadcasting towers – has chosen Italy as the site of the Group’s new “Excellence Center” in the field of telecommunication infrastructures. The centre will be located in Rome and point to Cellnex’s long-term commitment in Italy, acknowledging the skills and professionalism of the Italian group companies Galata and TowerCo.

The centre of excellence intends to play a central role in innovation and in developing new telecommunications technologies to be used by Cellnex in the markets in which it operates.

It will cover the following competence areas:
• Automation of the network operation centres;
• Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) for indoor mobile coverage;
• Site management and ownership;

In the words of CEO Tobías Martínez Gimeno “With this initiative, Cellnex places Italy at the heart of its technology development strategy, which is linked to the creation of an operational excellence model based on identifying and spreading best practices and technologies, making this one of the main poles of innovation for the entire group”.

This decision fits squarely into Cellnex’s policy of interest and increasing presence in Italy, an approach that also involves continuous development of its activities, cooperation with other technologically advanced enterprises and with local authorities, for example the Europe-wide iCity and Compose projects.

Ongoing innovation programmes: ICity and Compose
In this connection, we should underline Cellnex’s commitment in Genoa and Bologna and within the broader Barcelona iCityproject to build a cloud platform to develop high-tech urban infrastructures and services (Smart City). Furthermore, in the European COMPOSE project to enhance the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT), Cellnex works hand in hand with two of Italy’s leading lights Innova (Rome) and CREATE-NET (Trento) as an industrial partner in the sector of services based on the Internet of things.

About Cellnex Telecom
On 19 February Cellnex Telecom posted its results for FY 2015, the first it has closed following the segregation of Abertis Infraestructuras and the flotation of the company on 7 May 2015. The highlights were the increase in revenue to € 613 million and growth in recurring EBITDA to € 235 million. Net profit was € 48 million. 35% of revenues were generated in Italy.

Since it acquired the portfolio of telecommunications towers from WIND in Italy in March 2015, Cellnex Telecom has become Europe’s leading independent operator of wireless communications infrastructure, with a total portfolio of 15,199 towers. Cellnex operates in three business areas: Mobile telephony infrastructures; audiovisual broadcasting networks; security and emergency service networks and solutions for smart urban infrastructure and services management (smart cities and the “Internet of Things” (IoT)).

Cellnex chooses Italy as the location for a new 'excellence center'