Posts

Showing posts from January, 2019

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zimbabwe: U.S.$400 Million Deal in Limbo

-
By Tinashe Kairiza Government is reconsidering the US$400 million National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) recapitalisation project to be jointly undertaken by the South African rail, port and pipeline company, Transnet and the Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG) as it insists stakeholders have not agreed on the shareholding structure, among a myriad of unresolved issues stalling the deal, the Zimbabwe Independent can reveal. In fact, NRZ general manager Lewis Mukwada said government was yet to decide on the suitability of DIDG and Transnet to carry out the multi-million dollar project, which has attracted the interest of major banks from South Africa. A protracted due diligence exercise to determine the suitability of the consortium to roll out the multi-million dollar project is supposed to be finalised next month, enabling government to make a determination on whether or not to approve the deal. But owing to a number of thorny issues, the deadline could be missed. A...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zimbabwe: Ncube - Mnangagwa Squandered Global Goodwill Over Mugabe Ouster

-
By Pamenus Tuso President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government has squandered the international and local goodwill which followed the November 2017 ouster of predecessor Robert Mugabe. This was said by MDC vice president and former industry minister Prof Welshman Ncube in a recent interview with NewZimbabwe.com. Although global powers usually condemn and act against unconstitutional power grabs, the military-chaperoned ouster of Mugabe was generally winked at by the international community. According to Ncube however, Mnangagwa and his co-putschists have wasted opportunities which came with the end of Mugabe's 37-year reign. People had a lot of goodwill for Emmerson (Mnangagwa). Lots of countries in the world were saying let us give them a chance," he said. "Some people even here were saying let's give him a chance though some of us knew that they do not merit any chance because they are the same old junta that propped up Mugabe. "(But) they h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

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

-
Image
  There are a lot of people, but the oceans are very big.   Rosley Majid/EyeEm via Getty Images If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise? March 29, 2021 2.07pm SAST Author Tony E. Wong Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology Disclosure statement Tony E. Wong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners Rochester Institute of Technology  provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. The Conversation is funded by the National Research Foundation, eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Wester...
Read more

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

-
Image
  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen...
Read more

Which countries have the world’s largest coal reserves?

-
Image
  Visual Capitalist Elements   | September 15, 2021 | 8:58 am   Intelligence   Australia   USA   Coal   The Countries With the Largest Coal Reserves Cheap and abundant coal remains one of the largest sources of energy worldwide, even as governments set out goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While jurisdictions in Europe and North America have been phasing out coal use in power generation, it has been on the rise in Asia. China and India are scrambling to provide electricity to a growing population and relying on coal power plants to meet demands despite the environmental costs. SIGN UP FOR THE ENERGY DIGEST Sign Up This infographic takes a look into the  BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 , and the 11 countries that make up  89%  of the coal reserves globally. Coal Reserves, by Country While countries need to phase out coal by 2040 to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, consumption in key ...
Read more