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Mention a phone tower and everyone pictures the same thing: steel or some other metal. Every mobile tower built so far has relied on metal for exactly that reason — it’s the strongest, most practical choice available. But now, people have discovered that bamboo can offer surprising strength and other useful properties too.
Tower construction company Edotco has started building mobile towers made of bamboo in Dhaka, Bangladesh. These towers are expected to last up to ten years and are said to use less energy to build than steel towers.
Edotco has pioneered using bamboo as an innovative building material for its towers, starting construction in Dhaka with plans to expand to other markets where bamboo is widely available. The company already manages towers domestically, and is researching bamboo’s design and performance as an alternative to standard steel structures used in telecom infrastructure.
Research shows that untreated bamboo, thanks to its natural flexibility, can bear the weight of concrete used in tower construction. With regular maintenance, these towers can withstand wind speeds of up to 210 km/h and last as long as 10 years. Compared to standard steel towers, bamboo towers use less energy to build, take only about 12 days to construct, and can support up to 8 antenna mounting positions.
Edotco plans to get its bamboo tower designs approved as standard models across various regions of Dhaka within 2017, and aims to bring the approach to other markets with access to bamboo by 2018.