A new cell tower is installed in Grafenwoehr, Germany, in this undated photo from 2025. Tower Barracks in Grafenwoehr received four of the seven permanent cell towers recently installed at U.S. Army bases in Bavaria. (Andreas Kreuzer/U.S. Army)
GRAFENWOEHR, Germany — The Army activated seven new cell towers at installations in Bavaria recently, spreading the latest 5G technology across its largest training hub.
The permanent orange-and-white towers, initially supporting the Vodafone network, will boost signal strength and enable data speeds that exceed 100 megabytes per second, U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria said in a statement Wednesday.
Tower Barracks and the camps in Grafenwoehr have four of the seven, which also include one at Rose Barracks in Vilseck and two in Hohenfels.
The towers, which were installed Jan. 23, replace temporary infrastructure and the provider paid the full cost of adding them, the statement said. Solar panels on Tower Barracks will completely offset their energy consumption, it added.
A worker helps piece together a new cell tower at the U.S. Army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany, in this undated photo from 2025. (Andreas Kreuzer/U.S. Army)
“With the installation of the new permanent cell towers across our installations, we are taking a major step forward in improving connectivity, reliability, and internet speed,” Dwayne Key II, deputy to the garrison commander, said in the statement.
More providers could be added in the future, the statement said. U.K.-based Vodafone has 339 million mobile customers and is one of Europe’s largest providers of mobile, broadband and TV services, according to the company’s website.
