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 ...

SA COULD END UP LIKE ZIM, WARNS PARLY, IF LAND SAGA ISN’T RESOLVED

 The warning came from Mathole Motshekga, who chairs Parliament’s ad hoc committee tasked with amending section 25 to make land expropriation without compensation explicit.

The Parliament of South Africa. Picture: EWN

CAPE TOWN - Parliament on Friday warned that not finding a solution to the land question could lead South Africa to a Zimbabwe-like situation.

The warning came from Mathole Motshekga, who chairs Parliament’s ad hoc committee tasked with amending section 25 to make land expropriation without compensation explicit.

The committee met on Friday to continue deliberations on the contentious amendment.

Parties have so far not been able to agree on the Amendment Bill where it refers to no compensation, state custodianship of land and the actual need to amend the Constitution itself.

Committee Chairperson Motshekga called for the conclusion of the process and warned that South Africa could become like Zimbabwe.

“If we fail to do so it means that we are opting for a Zimbabwe solution, and it will be a sad day if what happened in Zimbabwe comes to South Africa.”

Economic Freedom Fighters MP Floyd Shivambu said his party disagreed with anything that talks about compensation.

“We fundamentally disagree with the ANC’s revised position so anything that will say subject to compensation we are never going to agree to that.”

The parties have agreed to submit revised versions of their submissions and to continue discussions at the next meeting.

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