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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Sasol's sale of the world's biggest oxygen production site gets thumbs up

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The Competition Commission is recommending the approval the sale of Sasol's 16 air separation units in Secunda.
The Competition Commission is recommending the approval the sale of Sasol's 16 air separation units in Secunda.
Gallo/Getty images

The Competition Commission has recommended the approval of Air Liquide South Africa’s acquisition of Sasol’s 16 air separation units (ASUs) in Secunda.

Together these units form the world's biggest oxygen production site, which produce oxygen and other gasses mainly used by Sasol in its production of fuels.

Sasol will earn R8.5 billion from the deal, which it will use to help settle its massive debt burden of more than R120 billion. Sasol has sold a number of its assets, including a 30% stake in a natural gas pipeline between Mozambique and South Africa, in recent months to stabilise its precarious financial position.

Air Liquide supplies industrial gases to different industries in South Africa, including the health sector, and the Competition Commission found that its takeover of Sasol's oxygen units was unlikely to result in the prevention or lessening of competition in the market.

But the commission does have some prerequisites for the deal, including that Air Liquide must commit to substantially reduce carbon emissions from the site in the next ten years. Also, it must agree to an agreement to buy 900 MW in renewable energy.

Other requirements include that it must invest in training affected employees, as well as in localisation, and it must provide surplus liquid oxygen to the healthcare sector, particularly to public facilities. The commission also have requirements around promoting diversity of ownership, and procuring services and products from small businesses and black-owned enterprises.

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