When in March 2020 workers logged on to Zoom in their droves – for everything from board meetings to Covid quizzes – Brian McHugh watched with trepidation the heat maps indicating data usage on the 1,300 mobile phone masts and installations across Ireland.
hanks to the lockdown and a sudden mass experiment in remote working, rural mobile phone masts that handled little more than a few phone calls were suddenly dealing with the data-hungry cloud-focused demands of modern dispersed workplaces.
“The demand for data exploded,” recalls McHugh, now managing director of Vantage Towers Ireland – a listed firm carved off from Vodafone in 2020 as part of a move to monetise the mobile network’s Europe-wide tower and mast infrastructure.
Three years on, McHugh has the time and space to push innovations that are helping to reinvent the simple lattice steel phone mast – from attaching solar panels and small wind turbines, to incorporating the network equipment into street furniture and EV charging stations.
But, back in the early days of Covid, McHugh’s team was focused on keeping a traumatised country connected.
“Up until the pandemic, most people were centralised during the day in main urban areas. And suddenly people were dispersed all over the place – meaning a demand for data capacity in places where there hadn’t been that demand before.
"Operators had to upgrade to meet those requirements.”
‘In general, people understand the benefits that infrastructure brings, how it can improve society’
McHugh was at that time still working for Vodafone, as head of network property. But that March, quite apart from the virus, massive change was also underway for McHugh and the Vodafone division where he worked.
Nick Read had taken over as Vodafone CEO and had decided to hive off the firm’s 82,000 tower assets across eight European countries.
As a result, McHugh and his colleagues found themselves working from home, feverishly trying to meet the June 1 deadline for the move from Vodafone into a new independent and soon-to-be listed firm called Vantage Towers – with McHugh heading up the new firm in Ireland.
But the pandemic had presented an immediate and unexpected problem. New working patterns were having a profound and fundamental impact on the entire mobile phone network.
“Our biggest problem initially was access. Where we had rooftop installations in town centres, we suddenly found there was no one in the building, or there was restricted access due to Covid. But we had to ensure that if there was a fault, we could have access to repair it.”
But as home working began to become the norm rather than a temporary measure, there were longer-term implications for network design and infrastructure rollout.
“Each tower has only so much capacity, so you might have had one site covering an area that now required a second site within a kilometre or two to deal with capacity.”
Vantage, now fully independent from Vodafone and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, has begun a rollout programme in Ireland that over the next four years will add up to 200 new sites – which, as with its existing portfolio, will host equipment for all the main mobile phone operators.
In the past, planned mobile phone masts – which cost about €150,000 to install – were sure to spark local objections and protests.
“There are still hotbeds around the country where that type of legacy has lingered, but it tends to be more historical. Things have progressed. Misconceptions around health, for example, to a large extent have been extinguished. But every now and again you’ll hear maybe someone blaming 5G for coronavirus.
"I think, in general, people understand the benefits that infrastructure brings, how it can improve society and the economy. To have an inclusive and diverse society you need a connected society, and we are a big player in providing that.”
A much bigger issue for Vantage are the delays in the planning system – even if McHugh says that, in terms of openness and transparency, it compares favourably to other markets. But with strategic housing developments and other major applications stuck in the planning system, phone mast plans are getting held up for protracted periods.
“We need to build new masts, but we are quite confined in terms of the planning process. You allow a three-month window for planning but about 25pc of our applications go to An Bord Pleanála – and that can push out planning to well over a year.”
While there is almost 100pc mobile coverage in terms of population, geographically-speaking, Ireland has about 90pc coverage.
“Is it economically viable for anyone to cover that last 10pc? Probably not,” he says. “We have to get smarter in terms of deployment options.
"At Vantage, we’ve moved on from just traditional lattice towers and rooftop sites to indoor distributed antenna systems in shopping centres and multi-tenanted buildings. But there is probably a conversation to be had regarding some kind of central funding – be it from government or Europe – to incentivise network operators to deploy for that last 10pc.”
‘In city centres we are looking at co-locating masts with things like lampposts and bus shelters’
This could become a more crucial topic if autonomous vehicles, for example, and other applications entirely dependent on 5G network connectivity, become a widespread reality.
Many consumers who bought expensive 5G enabled phones have been left somewhat disappointed after all the hype but McHugh insists it is the technology of the future.
“It may seem right now like the use cases aren’t fully developed but there is a lot of development across industries from automation and robotics to healthcare that will mean the benefits of 5G will look very different in two or three years’ time.”
The nature of the tower infrastructure is also changing and Vantage is increasingly rolling out infill sites in the network by incorporating equipment into street furniture.
“In city centres we are looking at co-location with things like lampposts and bus shelters. There’s number of discussions ongoing in terms of what we can do next in this regard. In Hungary, for example, our colleagues have co-located with EV charging points through partnerships to share costs."
Moving the business out of Vodafone and becoming its own entity allowed Vantage to prioritise this type of innovation, he says.
“In a large multinational company, moving things along in terms of local innovation can be quite slow. Vantage has a flat organisational structure and has been designed on purpose to make sure that decisions can move through it quickly.”
One major plan that McHugh is implementing is to install solar panels at about 20pc of its Irish mast sites – about 120 towers – over the next number of years. It will also look at using the batteries onsite as a way to provide backup to the grid at times. This is part of its sustainability agenda, but will also help save on spiralling energy costs.
“We procure power from 100pc renewable sources, but we want to move towards self-sufficiency on our sites. We have developed a trial using solar PV panels on a number of elevated south facing sites with savings as high as 19pc in certain areas.
"We are now looking at wind as well, with small integrated turbines. Vantage is trialling that at the moment in Germany and we’ll trial it here too. Combining the wind and solar could allow us to save 25pc to 30pc. There’s a cost to it – but if there ever was a time to look at this kind of thing, now is that time.”
McHugh is no stranger to the mast sites themselves. He got to know them when he first joined Vodafone in 2007, as a quantity surveyor at a time when the mobile network was quickly rolling out new data capacity to handle the explosion of smartphone usage.
He was born in Prosperous, Co Kildare, and still works the family farm in his spare time. His grandfather, Thomas McHugh, was second in command of the Old IRA brigade in north Kildare, taking part in a famous escape from an internment camp.
McHugh’s father, a farmer, went into industry as production manager for a US firm in Naas that made rearview mirrors for cars. The silver coating material used in the mirrors was highly flammable, so the regular fires and general hustle and bustle were an eyeopener to young McHugh.
“From a very young age I remember going in with him on a Saturday and I’d sit in his office overlooking the factory floor. The only thing I wanted when I grew up was to be in his job.”
His mother, a career guidance teacher, encouraged him to study quantity surveying and property economics, which she felt would combine his interest in business with a more hands-on role that would suit him.
After joining Vodafone as an acquisition surveyor he found himself knocking on doors, trying to convince sceptical people that proposed mobile phone masts in their area would not negatively impact their lives.
People had genuine concerns that network providers worked hard to allay – but sometimes he would find that opposition to a particular site had actually been drummed up by another landowner, jealous that they had missed out on a windfall.
“I give great credit to a lot of our landlords back in the early days. They still talk about being ostracised in their local community. They couldn’t go into the supermarket to pick up a loaf of bread without someone giving them a cold shoulder. It was hard, but they battled through.”
It’s easier now, he says, and in rural areas, where ‘smart’ agriculture has transformed livestock farming for example, people are more likely to demand capacity improvements, than fight against a new tower.
Vantage is in the process of reconfiguring its relationship with its landlords – ranging from small farmers to big industrial estate owners.
“Traditionally, we’ve tended to have short- to medium-term arrangements with them, and not a lot of engagement. But we want to optimise the income that they receive from hosting our sites.”
With that in mind, Vantage is now about to offer site providers a number of new options: it will either purchase the freehold to the mast site, or it will enter medium-term lease agreements for up to 15 years, or long-term agreements for up to 50 years.
“It gives our landlords the opportunity to capitalise the monetary value that they receive. It’s maybe something that they can use to invest elsewhere, maybe into a pension.
"We can see in the market now that there are a number of lease aggregators coming from funds and other places. They look to buy the lease or revenue from underneath these assets in the hope that they can increase the rents and make a better return.
"They’ve had minimal success, because unsustainable rent increases leave us with just one option – to move the site.
"We want to make sure we have very good working relationships with site owners and we lose that once the lease aggregators come in.”
The new approach is another change from the Vodafone days, which had no desire to be involved in real estate deals, says McHugh.
But Vantage, finding itself in a very different world, has no such qualms.
Curriculum Vitae
Name: Brian McHugh
Position: Managing Director, Vantage Towers
Ireland
Age: 39
Lives: Prosperous, Co Kildare
Family life: Lives with wife Emma and their four children, Katie, Liam, James and Charlotte
Favourite hobbies: Working on the family farm, still trying to play GAA and coaching the underage teams
Favourite book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Favourite podcast: Jarlath Regan’s An Irishman Abroad
Business Lessons
What is the best piece of advice you have received throughout your career?
“If you are going to do something, do it right – from the most innovative tasks to the most trivial. Preparation is everything, because everything you do is reflected in your brand.”
What piece of advice would you give someone starting out in management?
“Have a strong work ethic, build trust and bring people along with you. If you listen to those around you and include them you will find a solution to any problem.”
How has the business developed since being carved out of Vodafone?
“The idea was to build new infrastructure and become a neutral host. Vodafone is our anchor tenant – but we have developed strong relationships with other customers in the market.”
