ATC (originally known as African Telephone cables) was founded in 1955 by a group of visionary British cable manufacturers, these including BICC, STC and GEC.
In 1999 GEC (which was the majority shareholder for many years, including during the entire sanctions period) changed its name to Marconi when the parent UK company decided to combine its telecommunications infrastructure under this name, with defence companies still using the GEC name.
For many years Marconi had been the majority shareholder but by 1999 almost 40% of the company was owned by the local Reunert group with a small stake being held by Marconi's technology partner, Pirelli (10,5%). At the beginning of 2003, Reunert took full control with a 100% stakeholding, although 25,15% was sold for an undisclosed amount to BEE company, Kgorong, later that same year. Kgorong is now called Powerhouse Utilities.
ATC (www.atc.co.za) built its factory and head office in Brits (north of Johannesburg and east of Pretoria) in 1973 and for many years the focus was on all types of copper telecommunication cable. With the interest shown by Telkom's predecessor in optical fibre which was immune to lightning, and the technological capabilities of the product, ATC decided to enter this field. It started making optical fibre cables in 1982 and then took a major decision to establish an optical fibre drawing plant, which was to become the first such facility in the southern hemisphere and the only one in Africa to this day (despite rumours and press releases to the contrary). A technology agreement with Is (whose cable interests are now incorporated into Pirelli) and proficient work from local contractors, saw this plant come on-line in 1984. The agreement with STC covered only singlemode fibres, so ATC's own engineers developed the process to produce multimode fibres.
The original plant had a capacity of 30 000 fibre kilometres (FKM), but improvements to the process and the amount of fibre which could be drawn from a single preform (raised from 6 km in 1984 to 100 km by 2000) ensured the plant consistently increased output by on average 26% per year. In the late 1990s ATC decided to install a new drawing tower (22 m high) and following the commissioning of this, its capacity increased to 500 000 FKM. The building had been designed for two such towers and the second was commissioned during 2002, raising the possible fibre output to over 1 million FKM (with 200 km being drawn from each quartz preform). Unfortunately, the completion of this plant coincided with a worldwide slump in the demand of fibre, compounded locally by the delayed licensing and roll-out of the SNO. The fibre plant is currently operating below maximum capacity at some 600 000 FKM.
In terms of optical fibre, ATC as indicated, produces singlemode and multimode, the former for telecommunication and the latter for LAN applications and transmission of CCTV video imagery. While ATC produces the standard fibres required by the telecoms industry, mostly for use in metal ducting, it specialises in special cables. These include optical fibre self-supporting cables for use on high voltage power lines, with span lengths up to 500 m. Then there is the special optical fibre cable developed for use in mineshafts where particular attention has to be given to long vertical drops, and whether the fibre can support itself. The mine cables for safety purposes also include the use of sheaths manufactured from material which is low smoke, zero halogen, being fire retardant. Another custom cable is a field-deployable one, intended for re-use and used for temporary or mobile links. Originally developed for the military this cable has been adapted to allow for fast restoration of telephone links (for example, in the case of copper theft). The fibre count in these cables is two or four and this cable can also support a vertical drop of 1 km. A more recent standard cable is called FibreWorx and has been designed so that it can be used in blown fibre installations, a technique which is increasing in popularity.
Although this article is focusing more on optical fibre cable, there are even more variants produced in standard copper cable. Traditional twisted pairs are still used in most short distance telecommunication applications and ATC has a capacity in excess of 3 million core km of copper cable per year. The range of copper telecommunication cable manufactured includes indoor, outdoor, aerial, armoured and a variety of specialised products including signal and instrumentation cable and shielded coaxial. Underground cables typically can contain more than 2400 pairs of twisted cable. Aerial self-supporting cables can contain up to 100 pairs, but this can also be as low as six.
In addition to these now standard catalogue items, ATC has manufactured very specialised communications cable (often using both fibre and copper) for use in the Koeberg Power Plant and in the upgrade of the SA Navy's Daphne submarines. A special security cable made for De Beers had in excess of 96 fibres, the largest number ever incorporated into a single cable by ATC.
Within South Africa, the major users of telecommunication products are Telkom, Eskom and Transtel, the latter two providing the core infrastructure for the SNO (second fixed network operator). Optical fibre of course also provides high quality, reliable communications with Windhoek and other towns in Namibia, wending its way across the harsh desert. At the other end of the temperature scale, ATC provided multimode fibre for use in the LAN infrastructure of the SANAE base in Antarctica. A recent major customer for control and instrumentation cables was the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique.
ATC has seized on any opportunity to export its product and the first exports outside of Africa occurred in 1987. Today, in terms of its copper product, major users include Turkish Posts and Telecommunications, British Telecom, Hong Kong Telecom, Telephonica Spain, Digital Philippines and Malaysia Railways. A major success for the company was that it was selected to supply all the copper and optical fibre cable required for use in Hong Kong's new international airport. In terms of fibre, ATC has also supplied Pirelli with special 'neon-coloured' product that is used by British Telecom. As for Africa, major users within SADC include Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya. In total ATC has exported telecommunication cable to more than 50 countries. In a recent rebranding exercise by Reunert, ATC was renamed as CBI-electric: telecom cables.
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