ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

Image
  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 ...

Mysterious figures at Bayern Munich

Mysterious figures at Bayern Munich
Eleven men dressed in identical black robes were present in the stands to the surprise of bewildered fans at the Allianz Arena
EXTRA TIME

A group of mysterious figures caused a stir in the crowd at Bayern Munich's clash with Hertha Berlin at the Allianz Arena on Saturday.

The 11 unknown men, each dressed in black robes and sat in a line, were spotted making strange synchronised gestures during the league match, which Bayern won 3-2.


Men In Black | The robed figures startled supporters

Situated six rows from the pitch just beside the halfway line in the stand opposite the broadcasting gantry, the group was also seen by TV viewers all across the world.

One fan, Torsten Schmidt, said: "It was very weird. They sat very still for a long time but then would hold their hands up together, or stand up in unison and then sit down again. Everyone near me was very confused. Some people laughed, some looked astonished. It was just very weird."

A key feature of their clothing was a circular symbol on the chest of their robes. It clearly resembled the logo spotted at a series of linked unexplained event over the past week.


Out of this world | Fans were puzzled by the circular symbol

The same symbol has been seen at locations across the globe, starting with the appearance of a hologram on Rio de Janeiro's Sugarloaf mountain on Sunday, 20 October.

A three-metre football displaying the sign then gouged a huge hole in the turf at London's amateur football hub Hackney Marshes 24 hours later, while New York City's Times Square was struck by similar images on the tourist spot's world famous digital billboards.

Further sightings of the symbol have been witnessed in the Copacabana neighbourhood of Rio and on the Brazilian city's Santa Maria hill, but this is the first time that the mystery has spread to a professional football arena. Also repeatedly spotted at the locations has been the message: #WINNERTAKESEARTH

To see a video of these previous events, click here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise?

Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

Which countries have the world’s largest coal reserves?