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 ...

Opposition wants Namibia-Botswana border treaty cancelled

 NEWS

Namibia’s President Hage Geingob. File Photo: Kopano Tlape/GCIS
Namibia’s President Hage Geingob. File Photo: Kopano Tlape/GCIS

Opposition wants Namibia-Botswana border treaty cancelled

By Molaole Montsho Time of article published Jun 2, 2021

Rustenburg – Namibia's opposition party the Popular Democratic Movement wants the Botswana-Namibia ratified 2018 boundary treaty recalled and revoked pending consultations with the public, Namibia media reported on Wednesday.

The party's member of parliament Geoffrey Mwilima told a media conference in Katima Mulilo that there had been no public consultation before the treaty was signed, the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) reported on Tuesday.

According to the public broadcaster, the party made the call after the communities living along the Namibia-Botswana border in the Zambezi Region complained of harassment by the Botswana Defence Force within Namibia.

He said what used to be residents' grazing lands and tourist attraction sites were now in Botswana following the signing of the border treaty in 2018.

The treaty was signed by President Hage Geingob and former Botswana president Ian Khama.

Mwilima said the Namibian government had failed to provide him with public participation documents, leaving him to conclude that there was no public participation for residents to give input.

Daily newspaper The Namibian reported that the chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Pansy Tlakula, warned Geingob against signing the border treaty in 2016.

According to the daily, Tlakula warned Geingob to refrain from taking measures that would have consequences.

Pressure groups and traditional authorities in the Zambezi region have urged the government to withdraw from the 2018 boundary treaty, which they claim was fraudulent and in bad faith.

On May 17, The Namibian reported that the Mafwe and Mayeyi traditional authorities in the Zambezi region were refusing to recognise the legality of the border treaty of 2018 between Namibia and Botswana, stating that their communities were living in fear as Botswana increased military activity along the Chobe River.

The traditional leaders demanded that the border treaty agreement be cancelled because it does not reflect the historical narrative of the ancient borders between Namibia and Botswana.

The newspaper reported that Botswana soldiers pointed loaded rifles at unarmed Namibians and international visitors at Ngoma along the shared part of the Chobe River on the Namibian side.

African News Agency (ANA)

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