CSquared bets $125m on fibre superhighways throughout Africa

For all of the discuss Africa’s digital future, the actual problem is buried within the floor: fibre. With out it, widespread adoption and entry to high-speed web will stay out of attain for tens of millions of individuals. CSquared, a pan-African expertise firm with roots in Google’s “Challenge Hyperlink,” is betting $125 million that open-access, carrier-neutral fibre networks can lastly ship reasonably priced, dependable broadband throughout the continent.

Launched in 2011 in Uganda and spun off in 2017 with backing from Google, Mitsui & Co, Convergence Companions, and the IFC, CSquared has grown into one in all Africa’s most influential wholesale fibre suppliers. Its mannequin is straightforward however transformative: as a substitute of each cell operator and web service supplier (ISP) constructing duplicative, costly infrastructure, CSquared builds the highways of connectivity and leases capability to anybody who wants it. The corporate has laid over 7,500 kilometres of fibre throughout Uganda, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Togo, powering greater than 100 ISPs and cell operators.

However CSquared’s ambitions stretch far past metropolis grids. With a contemporary $25 million injection in late 2023—a part of a broader $65 million programme—the corporate is increasing into new frontiers, together with cross-border fibre corridors and edge information centres. Collectively, its buyers, together with Google, IFC, Mitsui & Co, Convergence Companions, Convergence Companions Digital Infrastructure Fund, and Worldwide Improvement Affiliation’s Personal Sector Window (IDA-PSW) Blended Finance Facility, have now staked over $125 million on the imaginative and prescient of a really interconnected Africa.

The fibre hole

For Samuel Owusu Yeboah, CSquared’s Group Chief Expertise Officer, the issue is as clear as it’s pressing. “Connectivity is interconnecting all telecom gear and nodes throughout completely different areas or nations so that you just’re capable of change data seamlessly,” he informed TechCabal on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, on the African Peering and Interconnection Discussion board in Lagos. “Right now, information is a brand new commodity. Our function is to supply a dependable broadband medium for all gamers: ISPs, MNOs, governments, in order that they’ll attain the top person.”

But the dimensions of the duty is staggering. Africa’s inhabitants of 1.4 billion stays solely partially on-line. Web penetration hovers between 35% and 48% in lots of areas, leaving lots of of tens of millions unconnected. In West Africa alone, dwelling to fifteen nations and over 110 million folks, cross-border connectivity stays fragmented. 

Yeboah recollects driving from Monrovia into Sierra Leone, the place a easy native name price upwards of $11 attributable to infrastructure gaps. “Calling my brother within the neighbouring nation shouldn’t price greater than calling somebody in Asia,” he says. “That’s what we’re making an attempt to repair.”

Wholesale by design

In contrast to retail telecom gamers, CSquared doesn’t promote on to shoppers. As a substitute, it positions itself as an enabler, constructing the invisible spine of Africa’s digital economic system. Willem Marais, the corporate’s Chief Business Officer, explains this strategy: “It takes governments, personal buyers, overseas and native companions to grasp an interconnected Africa. We’re the impartial layer, constructing the metric infrastructure that everybody else depends on.”

That neutrality is essential. Slightly than competing with cell operators, CSquared counts them as prospects. The corporate’s wholesale mannequin lowers capital prices by economies of scale and partnerships—whether or not leasing current poles in Liberia to scale back deployment prices or partnering with Phase3 Telecom to ship the Accra–Lagos terrestrial route. 

“Not one social gathering can do all of it,” says Yeboah. “We regularly pursue co-build fashions, the place we share prices and infrastructure. It makes broadband extra reasonably priced for everybody.”

Navigating governments and borders

If fibre is a technical problem, it’s additionally a political one. Cross-border tasks require regulatory cooperation that’s typically briefly provide. Marais admits that success relies upon as a lot on diplomacy because it does on engineering. 

“After we transfer into a brand new territory, step one is all the time to interact with the minister of communications and the regulator,” he mentioned. “As soon as we perceive their priorities, we apply for a license after which begin rolling out infrastructure.”

That stakeholder engagement has yielded public-private partnerships in Liberia, Togo, and past. “It’s about socialising the imaginative and prescient,” mentioned Yeboah. “Displaying governments the financial exercise and advantages that observe when you will have seamless cross-border connectivity.”

The highway forward

Already stay is the Accra–Lagos terrestrial route, a strategic hyperlink between two of West Africa’s largest digital economies. Subsequent in line are extensions into Côte d’Ivoire and additional inland markets. Over the following 5 years, CSquared envisions a “superhighway platform” interconnecting all 15 nations of West Africa, each alongside the coast and deep inland.

The long-term payoff is not only cheaper calls or sooner downloads. It serves as a basis for e-commerce, digital schooling, monetary inclusion, and Africa’s rising startup ecosystem. “Finally, we’re constructing for the top person,” says Marais. “When connectivity is reasonably priced and dependable, innovation follows.”

Betting on scale

CSquared’s wager isn’t with out threat. Fibre deployment is capital-intensive, and Africa’s infrastructure hole is large. However the firm believes its open-access, partnership-driven strategy is the one approach ahead. By leveraging economies of scale, collaborating with governments, and remaining a wholesale-only participant, it goals to maintain prices down and adoption up.

For a continent typically bypassed by international digital infrastructure, the $125 million wager is much less about cables than about alternative. As Yeboah places it, “There are nonetheless so many unconnected areas. The cake is sufficiently big for everybody. What issues is constructing collectively.”

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