INTETO CONNECT: Where the Signal Has to Work, Every Time

There are places in this world where connectivity is a luxury – not even a second thought. And there are places where it is a matter of life and death. 3000 metres underground in an active mine, in the cab of a locomotive cutting through remote terrain, inside a tunnel where conventional signals fail — these are the environments where Inteto Connect earns its reputation. This is not the glossy end of the technology industry. It is the end where failure is not an option.

Inteto Connect is the South African arm of the Poynting Group, a globally recognised antenna manufacturer with operations spanning Europe, the United States, and Africa. Between them, the group employs around 140 people. The South African division — established in 2007 — runs a lean team of 20, with employees holding a 49% stake in the business and a Level 2 BBBEE score that reflects a genuine commitment to transformation.

General Manager Frank Vermeulen has watched the business grow from a local antenna supplier into a company that sits at the intersection of some of the most demanding sectors in African technology. South Africa’s biggest mobile telco providers call Inteto Connect when they need signal delivered reliably inside buildings where cellular coverage fails. The company carries out site surveys, builds radio frequency plans, and implements the equipment required to provide voice and data coverage from the ground up. “We are the preferred installers and systems integrators for international companies that manufacture components for cellular networks,” Vermeulen explains. “We supply antennas that the major telcoms rely on for both voice and data solutions.”

It is a position built not on price, but on performance.

BUILT FOR EXTREMES

South Africa’s connectivity landscape is in transition. Mobile networks carrying 4G coverage are expanding, while 5G services have begun rolling out in major cities. Research suggests that 5G adoption in South Africa was expected to reach 10% of mobile connections by 2025, reshaping what infrastructure operators need from antenna and signal technology partners.

Meanwhile, the continent’s appetite for data infrastructure is accelerating, with billions flowing into cloud regions, submarine cables and hyperscale data centres across Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa — markets where reliable connectivity is the prerequisite for everything else.

For Inteto Connect, the opportunity is vast. But the differentiator is not simply being present in a growing market — it is being the company others cannot replicate. Poynting’s antenna technology, Vermeulen is unequivocal, is best-in-class globally. Emergency vehicles across Europe run Poynting antennas because of proven reliable performance. In the mining sector, the stakes are higher still. “In the mining industry, our equipment is life critical – it has to work flawlessly, every time, 24/7,” Vermeulen says.

“Poynting’s biggest differentiator is its quality – companies that need reliable high-performance buy these products over others in the market, and that is key marker of the level we are at,” he adds.

The margins in mining reflect this. Because Poynting products consistently outperform every alternative, margins in mining systems integration typically exceed 80%. “We do not run a cost-plus model,” Vermeulen says. “Our value drives the price.”

The most significant near-term launch, however, is a new 5G Customer Premises Equipment device that Vermeulen describes as genuinely without parallel. “Our 5G CBE is brand new and there is nothing really like it,” he says. “It is a result of us always being product focused and product centred.”

The numbers behind the device support that confidence. Testing recorded download speeds of 2.4 Gbps with 880 Mbps upload — significant performance in the context of South Africa’s current network conditions. Crucially, the device is backwards compatible with LTE, 3G and 2G, allowing deployment across the full spectrum of connectivity environments in a country where infrastructure quality varies sharply by region. “That will become a major focus for us as we go to market with this product,” Vermeulen says — a device built precisely for a country straddling legacy networks and next-generation ambitions simultaneously.

Combining innovation with complex manufacturing is a point of pride. In Samrand, south of Pretoria, Inteto Connect produces mining and bespoke antenna products locally, and still assembles communication equipment for superyachts by hand. The company also maintains a facility in China — a pragmatic necessity in a global supply chain where plastics, cables and connectors are predominantly produced there. Last year, more than 10,000 LMR400 cables were assembled for the mining sector alone, making it the highest-volume individual product in the portfolio.

GOING WHERE OTHERS WON’T

In the years since Covid, Inteto Connect has posted 25% year-on-year growth across its African operations. During the pandemic, the business did not close — its services were classified as essential — and the recovery since has been emphatic. The growth trajectory points clearly toward the continent’s least penetrated markets as the next frontier.

Africa, Vermeulen acknowledges, is the biggest untapped comm-tech market in the world. It is also the hardest to navigate. Regional politics, infrastructure gaps, and the complexity of operating across dozens of different regulatory environments deter most technology companies of scale. Vermeulen, an industry veteran with more than two decades behind him, views challenges as opportunities. “I have a philosophy of ‘only scared people are scared. I go where I need to go’,” he says.  

Active projects in Kenya, Zambia and the DRC are already underway, targeting markets where the opportunity is enormous precisely because the competition has stayed away. “The rest of the world has other big companies that compete, but you simply do not see them in Africa,” he adds. “The continent is behind the curve in terms of technology and adoption, and available capital, but it is highly exciting because these types of project have never been done before in many of these regions and that is why Africa is the focus.”

The macro picture supports this urgency. Africa is emerging as a major digital infrastructure frontier, with investment flowing into data centres and cloud regions across the continent, and South Africa leading the way as a regional hub. None of that investment functions without the antenna infrastructure and signal solutions that underpin reliable connectivity. The demand for what Inteto Connect provides is structural, tied to the irreversible digital transformation of the continent’s economies.

Through it all, the relationships Inteto has built with the country’s largest telco operators remain the bedrock of the business. Being trusted enough for a 3am call when a network goes down is not something that can be bought. “For us, relationships have been critical,” he says. “If a big telco calls us in the middle of the night with an issue, they know we will solve the problem and that they can rely on us. Of course, there are lengthy vetting processes and approvals, but you don’t get to that point of trust without an underlying relationship. All over the world, we value relationships because when people know they can trust you and trust the product, then discussions around price becomes academic.”

In an industry where generic alternatives are one search away, that trust — earned across nearly two decades of showing up in the hardest places with the best products — is what makes Inteto Connect a different proposition entirely. The signal, in every sense, keeps getting stronger.