ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

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  By   Daniel Puchert Partially state-owned telecommunications company Telkom announced in its financial results for the year ending 31 March 2025 that its ADSL subscribers had more than halved to under 30,000. According to the company’s operational data, ADSL lines decreased from 64,959 in March 2024 to 29,770. This 54.2% decline highlights that the legacy broadband technology is slowly approaching the end of the road. Telkom’s ADSL business peaked at the end of March 2016 with 1.01 million subscribers — two years after fibre upstart Vumatel  broke ground in Parkhurst . What followed was a sharp decline in Telkom ADSL subscribers. Customers connected to its copper networks decreased by more than 500,000 over the next four years. This was partly driven by Telkom itself, which began actively switching off its copper network in some neighbourhoods. If it did not have fibre in the area, it would offer a “fixed line lookalike” wireless service that ran over its cellular ...
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A Country in Danger of war again.

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DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi -- besieged in his Kinshasa home by heavily armed security forces -- swore a makeshift presidential oath on Friday as police battled in the streets outside with his rock-throwing supporters.
President Joseph Kabila was officially inaugurated on December 20 to a new term as head of the vast central African state, after winning a disputed November 28 election that Tshisekedi derided as fraudulent.
Kabila's inauguration earlier this week was held at a heavily guarded compound near the banks of the Congo River, and was attended by only one foreign head of state, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe warned that the region would resist any attempts to undermine Kabila's regime.
"We are one with them (Congolese) as they cele­brate the victory and his party and having won, and won thunderously against Tshisekedi. He has won a democratic election,” the Zimbabwean leader said.
"This must send a clear message to those who had other ideas. Any attempt to under­mine that democratic Government will be resisted by Africa, SADC and Zimbabwe which has been a partner to the Congolese people."
But a spokesman for Tshisekedi confirmed the oppostion leader had taken the oath of office on Friday.
"We consider (Tshisekedi has) been sworn in," said Remy Masamba, a spokesman for Tshisekedi's UDPS party. "I am sure that shortly he will communicate how the institutions will work and how the country will be run."
A top Kabila adviser called the move a "political farce" and said Tshisekedi could face charges.
"Anyone who makes pantomime politics and declares himself president will have to face the law of the land. We will not tolerate someone disturbing the peace and thinking his dreams are reality," Congo's ambassador to London, Kikaya Bin Karubi, told Reuters by telephone.
Tshisekedi had been seeking to hold the rival inauguration at a Kinshasa stadium, but security forces blocked the area around his house and also deployed tanks and the Republican Guard to the stadium.
Outside the stadium, hundreds of Tshisekedi supporters in small groups threw rocks at security forces before being pushed into backstreets by teargas. Police arrested dozens of people in street battles but there was no sign of serious injuries, a Reuters witness said.

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