By Andile Masuku
Despite the AI-fuelled headlines and promises of satellite connectivity, Africa’s digital transformation still depends heavily on physical infrastructure: optical fibre cables.
As global discussions increasingly focus on novel technologies, it’s the unglamorous fibre networks snaking beneath our urban centres that silently determine which economies will thrive in the coming decade.
Pieter E Viljoen, CEO of Yangtze Optics Africa Cable (YOA Cable), offers informed perspectives on this critical but often overlooked sector. With a master’s degree in semiconductor physics rather than the typical accountancy background of most South African executives, Viljoen exemplifies how first-principles thinking informs both technical manufacturing and strategic leadership at the company’s Dube Tradeport facility in KwaZulu-Natal.
Physics versus engineering
When I mistakenly referenced Viljoen’s engineering background, he offered a telling distinction: “Physicists, we have to think out of the box the whole time. Rather than following a set pattern like engineers, we tend to innovate around first principles.” Shots fired.
This perspective shapes his leadership style, balancing microscopic detail with systemic awareness. “As a physicist, you’re intimately aware of the details across the organisation—from manufacturing and design right through to the financial side,” Viljoen explains. “Having the ability to look at the minute detail but then also step back and have a more holistic view of how everything interconnects—that’s a very strong feature I have.”
This approach has driven YOA Cable’s unconventional talent strategy. Turns out his production planner previously worked in a bakery, planning bread distribution. His operations director came from Denel, South Africa’s state-owned defence corporation, bringing rigorous systems thinking from the explosives industry.
Lateral hires like these have apparently enabled YOA Cable to adapt fibre products for uniquely African deployment conditions—from township installations lacking traditional infrastructure to accounting for South Africa’s harsh UV conditions, which cause aerial cable degradation three times faster than in Europe.
The infrastructure paradox
Fibre infrastructure exists in a curious paradox—seemingly mundane from a deployment perspective but transformative in its impact. What’s particularly illuminating is how fibre underpins technologies most consumers perceive as wireless. “Cell phone operators like Vodacom, MTN and Telkom in South Africa—90% of their network is fibre,” Viljoen reveals.
This dependency only increases with new mobile technology generations. “For 5G, the demand for fibre is orders of magnitude higher than in a 4G network. You’ll have smaller towers picking up fewer customers each, but that means more towers—and all those small cells must be connected by fibre.”
The capacity evolution is dramatic. In the mid-1990s, South Africa’s entire international connectivity relied on a single submarine cable with four strands of optical fibre. Each fibre strand could simultaneously carry 12 million voice calls—compared to copper cables where each strand carried just one signal.
Today, transmission distances have increased from 30-60 kilometres to 400 kilometres without amplification, while fibre cable prices have fallen by more than 1 000% over two decades.
Manufacturing economics and competition
YOA Cable, a privately held joint venture between Chinese-listed YOFC and JSE-listed Mustek, has achieved financial sustainability. After an initial R150 million investment in 2016, Viljoen says the company funded roughly R20m in additional investments through 2023 entirely from its own revenues. The latest expansion represents another R150m investment, with R60m as new capital and R90m self-funded.
The competitive landscape is complex. Domestically, AM Hengtong Africa Telecoms leverages its Chinese and Aberdare Cables parentage, while players like CBi Telecom and M-TEC contribute to a surprisingly competitive local market.
Regionally, Egypt’s Benya Cables presents a different challenge with its Suez Canal Economic Zone operations and ambitions to reach 60 000 km of cable production capacity by 2030. Globally, industry titans like Prysmian Group and Corning Incorporated—the latter being where Viljoen began his career in 1996—bring technical leadership and vast R&D resources.
What Viljoen reckons distinguishes YOA Cable is their emphasis on regional specificity—understanding that products designed for Chinese or European deployment don’t withstand Southern Africa’s conditions or accommodate township infrastructure realities. This adaptation to local conditions, combined with manufacturing agility and their position serving customers from South Africa to Zambia, offers competitive advantages that imported solutions struggle to match.
Despite these challenges, YOA Cable manufactures approximately 300 unique products tailored to different customer requirements—from home connections to specialised applications for mining houses. “Openserve’s requirement is different from Dark Fibre Africa, which is different from, say, a FrogFoot,” Viljoen points out. Last year alone, they reportedly produced 1.2 million core fibre kilometres for the South African market.
Competing without protectionism
“The telecommunications sector in South Africa is a very open competitive sector. There’s very little control in terms of barrier of entry,” Viljoen states candidly. “If we look at telecommunications investment in South Africa, 80 percent of all investment in the ICT and telecoms sector is private investment, so the typical South African sort of B-BBEE preferential procurement barriers to entry are not there.”
This creates a challenging competitive landscape. “I have to compete against manufacturers from India, manufacturers from China, Europe, and the US, and I have to compete with them on equal footing. There’s nothing protecting me.”
Viljoen shared a cautionary tale about local optical ground wire cable production for Eskom that was discontinued in 2008 due to fluctuating demand forecasts. When asked to conduct a feasibility study to restart production in 2014, he discovered a stark reality: “I could work out what it would cost me with the investment and all of that—and that was still three times less than the current market price. And that current market price is completely imported from Europe, North America, and China. Because you don’t have a local player in the market, the value of the product is not held in check.”
This example illustrates a broader pattern that frustrates Viljoen. “Local manufacturing typically in South Africa is seen as being expensive. The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, when they localise or have policies to protect local industries, it’s typically seen as a negative. However, the real negative for me is when we have industries and consumers in South Africa that are so fixated on cost that they can forsake a whole manufacturing industry. And the more you deindustrialise, the more you actually lose.”
Digital inclusivity and skills development
Beyond business fundamentals, Viljoen frames affordable connectivity as both an ethical and pragmatic necessity. “Data is becoming a natural resource, a basic human right,” he argues.
“You cannot grow our society the way we are today, you cannot expect everybody in society to be equal if some have access to affordable data and others don’t.”
This vision extends to skills development. Out of their 155 employees, roughly 30 are either interns or learnership participants, with training extending beyond their operations to small SME installers. “If you take that out, where’s the next generation? In 10-15 years, we’ve got all these nice fibre networks, but who’s going to fix them?”
The geopolitical question mark
What remains unaddressed is whether the YOA Cable model—highly dependent on Chinese manufacturing expertise and capital—represents a viable path for African industrial self-reliance, especially as the US-China trade war intensifies. With South Africa’s exports to the US now potentially facing significantly higher tariffs, the viability of joint ventures with Chinese state-affiliated enterprises may face new challenges.
The vision Viljoen articulates transcends quarterly results but depends on geopolitical stability that increasingly appears uncertain. “The legacy I want to see and leave behind is that the day I retire and my internet connection is gone, there’s a South African who will be able to fix it.”
It’s a worthy aspiration, but one that sits at the intersection of industrial policy, geopolitics, and economic reality. As Africa contemplates its manufacturing future, the question remains whether targeted partnerships like YOA Cable represent viable models for growth or merely exceptions that prove a difficult rule: that bringing manufacturing capabilities to the continent remains challenging, even in strategic sectors where the case for local production seems strongest.
* Andile Masuku is Co-founder and Executive Producer at African Tech Roundup. Connect and engage with Andile on X (@MasukuAndile) and via LinkedIn.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of or Independent Media.
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