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 ...

POLITICS Phumzile Van Damme shades Zuma’s Nkandla home - ‘SA built this man a lounge the size of a restaurant'

 Cebelihle Bhengu

19 February 2021 - 13:00
Some South Africans said they wanted 'their share back' when DA MP Phumzile Van Damme commented on the size of Jacob Zuma's living room at his Nkandla homestead. File photo.
Some South Africans said they wanted 'their share back' when DA MP Phumzile Van Damme commented on the size of Jacob Zuma's living room at his Nkandla homestead. File photo.
Image: Esa Alexander

Besides the contents of the meeting between former president Jacob Zuma and police minister Bheki Cele, what caught the attention of DA MP Phumzile Van Damme was the size of Zuma’s lounge at his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal.  

Pictures of the two ANC members circulated on social media after Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile, shared them on Twitter.

Unlike Zuma’s recent tea meeting with EFF leader Julius Malema, Cele was served fruit in the former president’s lounge.

“South Africa built this man a lounge the size of a restaurant,” tweeted Van Damme, taking a jab at the Zuma’s homestead.

Her post sparked tons of reactions, with some saying they want their “share back” and others dismissing Van Damme. 

The police minister did not address the media about his meeting with Zuma, but the former president’s daughter took to Twitter to give SA a glimpse of what was shared.

“No Nkandla tea was served but great conversations and laughs were shared among  comrades, one of them being, should an arrest warrant be issued, it is the minster  would come and fetch [former] president Jacob Zuma,” she joked.

Zuma faces the prospect of jail time after he refused to appear before the state capture inquiry this week after the Constitutional Court ordered to him to testify. 


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