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 ...

MNANGAGWA’S GOVT TRYING TO BREAK UP OPPOSITION MDC ALLIANCE, SAYS US

 In a statement, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that ZANU–PF was misusing the levers of government to silence its critics.

FILE: Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Picture: AFP

HARARE - The United States said that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government was trying to break up the opposition MDC Alliance after another six MPs were recalled from parliament.

The MDC Alliance already had a minority of seats in parliament following ZANU-PF’s win in the 2018 elections.

Former finance minister Tendai Biti was one of the high-profile opposition MPs who no longer had a seat in parliament.

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Their PDP party (People’s Democratic Party), which was part of Nelson Chamisa’s MDC Alliance, said that they were no longer members.

This appeared to be the latest in months of worsening infighting within the opposition, which the US appeared to believe was being fomented by the state.

In a statement, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that ZANU–PF was misusing the levers of government to silence its critics.

He said that COVID-19 regulations were being used selectively to ban opposition party gatherings.

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