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 ...

Nostradamus 2020: Why do people think Nostradamus predicted coronavirus?

NOSTRADAMUS predicted the coronavirus pandemic in 1555, according to bizarre claims made on social media.

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The  (SARS-CoV-2) has infected more than 315,000 people since it first appeared in China last November. The newly discovered pathogen has spread to virtually every corner of the planet, killing in the process more than 13,000 people as of 3.08pm GMT (10.08am EST) on March 22.
The way in which the virus appeared without warning, has led many to speculate whether the virus is supernatural in origin.
Some people have said the , foretold in the Christian Book of Revelation.
Others have said the self-titled psychic  in a book she wrote 12 years ago.
Some, however, claim the 16th-century physician and supposed clairvoyant, Nostradamus, predicted the pandemic.
Nostradamus 2020: Coronavirus hazmat suit
Nostradamus 2020: Did the French mystic predict the COVID-19 pandemic? (Image: GETTY)
Nostradamus 2020: Tweets about Coronavirus
Nostradamus 2020: People have been tweeting about Nostradamus prophecies (Image: TWITTER)
Nostradamus' followers credit the man with predicting many world events, including the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963.
Hundreds of conspiracy theorists have now taken to social media to claim Nostradamus knew of coronavirus nearly 500 years ago.
One person said: "Think about it, Nostradamus predicted Prophecies for 2020 would be marked by a major economic crisis: Bankruptcy, recession and dark times for the global economy.
"The Simpsons' predictions include Trump presidency, this year's Super Bowl, the Coronavirus epidemic, Kobe's death."
Another person said: "Nostradamus has haunting prophecies of this happening... #COVID19 #coronavirus."
A third person said: "Did you hear Nostradamus predicted the COVID-19 pandemic more than 400 years before it happened? #Nostradamus #Covid19TR #Coronavirus".
Nostradamus' writings are exploited in a number of fallacious ways
Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
But where are these outrageous claims coming from?
Nostradamus penned his supposed prophecies of the future in cryptic, four-lined poems known as quatrains.
The bulk of Nostradamus' writings were published in 1555, in his magnum opus Les Propheties.
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Nostradamus 2020: Coronavirus attacks the respiratory system (Image: GETTY)
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Coronavirus symptoms: Signs of COVID-19 to look out for during the pandemic (Image: EXPRESS)
In one such quatrain, Nostradamus wrote: "Near the gates and within two cities
"There will be two scourges the like of which was never seen,
"Famine within plague, people put out by steel,
"Crying to the great immortal God for relief."
In another passage about the plague, Nostradamus said: "Newcomers, place built without defence,
"Place occupied then uninhabitable:
"Meadows, houses, fields, towns to take at pleasure,
"Famine, plague, war, extensive land arable."
Most sceptics, however, agree Nostradamus' prophecies are too vague to decipher or link to modern-day events.
Brian Dunning, host of the Skeptoid podcast believes Nostradamus' prophecies can only be interpreted with a great deal of hindsight.
He said on his podcast: "Nostradamus' writings are exploited in a number of fallacious ways.
“Ambiguous and wrong translations, ‘creative’ interpretations, hoax writings, fictional accounts, and the breaking of non-existent codes within his quatrains all contribute to a vast body of work, all of it wrong, and many times the size of everything Nostradamus ever actually wrote.”

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