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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JOY AS MEGASHIP REFLOATED, SUEZ CANAL TRAFFIC RESUMES

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 Television footage showed tugboat crews sounding their foghorns in celebration after the Ever Given, a cargo megaship the length of four football fields, was dislodged from the banks of the Suez.

This picture taken on March 28, 2021 shows a distant view of the Panama-flagged MV 'Ever Given' (operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine) container ship, which has been wedged diagonally across the span of the canal about six kilometres north of the Suez Canal's entrance by the Red Sea port city of Suez since March 23, blocking the waterway in both directions. Picture: Ahmed HASAN / AFP.
This picture taken on March 28, 2021 shows a distant view of the Panama-flagged MV 'Ever Given' (operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine) container ship, which has been wedged diagonally across the span of the canal about six kilometres north of the Suez Canal's entrance by the Red Sea port city of Suez since March 23, blocking the waterway in both directions. Picture: Ahmed HASAN / AFP.
| 2 days ago

SUEZ, Egypt - The MV Ever Given was refloated and the Suez Canal reopened on Monday, sparking relief almost a week after the huge container ship got stuck during a sandstorm and blocked a major artery for global trade.

"Admiral Osama Rabie, head of the Suez Canal Authority, has announced the resumption of shipping traffic in the Suez Canal," the SCA said in a statement.

Television footage showed tugboat crews sounding their foghorns in celebration after the Ever Given, a cargo megaship the length of four football fields, was dislodged from the banks of the Suez.

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The breakthrough followed what appeared to be a setback and came moments after the ship had temporarily settled back into the diagonal position it had been stuck in after running aground last Tuesday.

Maritime data company Lloyd's List said the blockage had held up an estimated $9.6 billion worth of cargo each day between Asia and Europe.

By the end of the drama, the tailback of ships had reaching 425 at the two ends of the canal, in the Mediterranean and Red Sea.

TUG BOAT FLOTILLA

The Japanese-owned ship had been partially dislodged early Monday, triggering immediate praise from Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"Today, Egyptians have been successful in putting to an end the crisis of the stranded ship in the Suez Canal, despite the enormous complexity surrounding the process," Sisi said.

Egypt was estimated to have lost some $12-14 million in revenue from the canal for each day it was closed, according to the canal authority.

After the 200,000-tonne ship was refloated, it was expected to take around three and a half days to clear the traffic jam of ships, Rabie said, praising rescue efforts.

Salvage crews have been working around the clock.

They had focussed on efforts to remove sand around the ship, with 27,000 cubic metres (over 950,000 cubic feet) cleared at a depth of 18 metres (59 feet), SCA spokesman George Safwat said on Sunday.

KNOCK-ON EFFECTS

The crisis has forced companies to choose between waiting or rerouting vessels around Africa, which adds a huge fuel bill, 9,000 kilometres (5,500 miles) and over a week of travel to the trip between Asia and Europe.

Russia offered assistance on Sunday, following other countries including the United States that have made similar offers.

In a sign of the knock-on effects from the Suez blockage, authorities in war-wracked Syria said the crisis had hit its fuel imports from Iran and forced it to ration already scarce supplies.

Romania's animal health agency said 11 ships carrying livestock out of the country were also impacted, while the charity Animals International warned of a potential "tragedy" affecting some 130,000 animals.

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