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 ...
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‘Sulphur smell’ has Pretoria residents worried, as some complain of headaches

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 Eliot Mahlase

‘Sulphur smell’ has Pretoria residents worried, as some complain of headaches

A strange dark cloud smelling of sulphur” in the area had Pretoria residents abuzz. Photo: Martin van Niekerk

In one tweet, Gauteng Weather said that the air pollution was coming from either Emalahleni or Secunda.

“A strange dark cloud smelling of sulphur” in the area had Pretoria residents abuzz on social media over the weekend.

This as several residents complained of the smell and cloud that seemed to have lingered until Monday.

Many believed the cloud to be pollution emanating from Mpumalanga.


“Does anyone else smell sulphur on the air? It’s giving me a headache of note,” posted resident David John Newton on Facebook.

“I’m checking again what’s causing the sulphur dioxide smell and hazy weather conditions,” posted Graeme Preston on the East Rand weather group at around 10:15 on Saturday morning.

“Current air quality levels: 154. Unhealthy air quality. Sulphur dioxide levels: 14. Average. The tropical depression in the Mozambique channel is changing the wind direction because our wind doesn’t normally come from the south-east direction.”

Tebogo Ngoatoana, another Pretoria resident, also believed the smell may have originated from Mpumalanga. “Apparently it’s originating from Mpumalanga’s industrial areas,” he tweeted.

In one tweet, Gauteng Weather said that the air pollution was coming from either Emalahleni or Secunda.

“South-easterly winds point to stench coming from Mpumalanga’s direction. The province is a pollution hotspot due to large industrial and electrical plants in the area,” the tweet read.

The SA Weather Service, however, could not confirm the smell.This article was republished from Rekord East with permission 

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Reducing air pollution ‘could prevent 50,000 deaths’ in Europe 20.1.2021
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