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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S.Africa mine violence shows structural flaws

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JOHANNESBURG — The recent deadly strikes at Lonmin's Marikana Platinum mine in South Africa revealed the country's "structural problems" which could damage investment, Fitch rating agency said on Friday.
"The protests highlight broader structural problems that have long weighed on South Africa's rating," Fitch said in a statement.
"These include policy uncertainty, particularly regarding the mining sector, and lack of progress on education and labour reforms which ... has resulted in insufficient growth to create the jobs required to put a dent in an unemployment rate of 25 percent."
About 3,000 rock drill operators at Lonmin launched an illegal strike on August 10 that quickly devolved into clashes with non-strikers.
Ten people including two police were killed, leading to the crackdown on August 16 when police gunned down 34 armed miners.
The strikes would not immediately affect South Africa's rating, but long-term failure to fix the issues would damage the country's investment climate, Fitch said.
The ruling African National Congress' recent deliberations to nationalise mines further "made South Africa a less favourable investment destination compared with peers," Fitch said.
South Africa's mining industry has lost 131,000 jobs since 2001 because of under-investment and poor performance, according to the agency.
"By failing to capitalise on the commodity boom, the country has missed an opportunity to increase government and export revenue and to fast track development," it said

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