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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 ...

Masvingo Council withdraws hospital land donation to government

Masvingo Council withdraws hospital land donation to government

 
By Tonderai Saharo

Masvingo: Government plans to construct a state-of-the-art provincial hospital in Masvingo on a 19-hectare piece of land have hit a snag after the local authority here decided to award the same land to a private contractor for commercial purposes.
The decision by council authorities comes as a huge blow to the health ministry which was in the process of securing $120 million from treasury to kick-start construction.
The current provincial hospital has run out of expansion space.
Masvingo provincial hospital, the only referral centre in the province, was built soon after independence to cater for 30 000 people but the population has ballooned to over two million.
Calls have been made to relocate the hospital to a more spacious area.
In 2012, council donated 19 hectares of land along the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway for the construction of a new hospital but construction was still to take off ground.
According to minutes of a recent full council meeting, the local authority rescinded its decision and earmarked the same piece of land for commercial purposes.
Masvingo city engineer Tawanda Gozo told the public works and planning committee that a private construction company, Urban Rises (Pvt) LTD had applied for land to develop an upmarket shopping mall and the land that was donated to the health ministry was found to be most suitable for the project.
He recommended that council should look for alternative land for the hospital construction.
“The major considerations for a provincial hospital are accessibility, less noise and visibility was not a major issue hence the request that council rescinds its resolution offering the said piece of land to the Ministry of Health and Child Care in order for council to utilise the strategic site or commercial development,” Gozo told the committee.

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