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 ...

Whoever replaces Mogoeng when he makes his welcome departure will need gravitas and wisdom

 Barney Mthombothi

28 March 2021 - 00:00

There will be obvious sighs of relief in the more sober quarters of the government - and among some of his berobed colleagues - that chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng's less-than-stellar term is mercifully coming to an end soon. One hopes that when he steps down in September, the country can then elect a replacement who will not only command the respect of his peers, but will be able to steady the ship in what looks like treacherous political waters ahead.

Mogoeng is no intellectual giant and was a complete unknown when Jacob Zuma plucked him from obscurity and plonked him down in the apex court in 2009. Two years later he was catapulted over more experienced colleagues to be chief justice...

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