ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

-
Image
  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 ...
Post a Comment

NASA’S MARS ROVER JUST REACHED A NEW AREA AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL THE SANDY DUNES OF MARS NEVER LOOKED THIS GOOD.

-

 

NASA
MARS CARS

NASA’S MARS ROVER JUST REACHED A NEW AREA AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL

NASA

Sandy Dunes

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover is making another pit stop on its journey to probe the surrounding Jezero Crater for signs of ancient life.

“I’ve made it to my next lookout, overlooking a spot we’re calling ‘Séítah,'” the rover’s official account tweeted just now.

“It’s an area of dunes with some good science targets in and around it,” the rover added. “I’ll spy a few from here, doing science from afar, then circle around and keep exploring.”

As promised, the views are extraordinary, as seen in a panorama accompanying the update — a reminder of the countless landscapes we have yet to see for ourselves on the Red Planet and beyond.

Rover Journey

The six-wheeled rover officially kicked off its science phase on June 1, leaving the “Octavia E. Butler” landing site where it touched down earlier this year.

It has since covered roughly 0.57 miles, according to geolocation data, making several stops along the way to explore its surroundings.

The Séítah (“amidst the sand” in the Navajo language) geological unit is adjacent to the crater-filled floor of Jezero, dubbed the Crater Floor Fractured Rough. The Séítah area is filled with layered rocks and sand dunes.

“Starting with the Crater Floor Fractured Rough and Seitah geologic units allows us to start our exploration of Jezero at the very beginning,” said Kevin Hand, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a June 9 statement.

“This area was under at least 100 meters [328 feet] of water 3.8 billion years ago,” he added. “We don’t know what stories the rocks and layered outcrops will tell us, but we’re excited to get started.”

On Auto

Thanks to Perseverance’s sophisticated “AutoNav” mode, which essentially turns it into a self-driving car, the rover is about to really get going.

“I’m getting a good feel for driving, and starting to take charge more to find my own way,” the rover’s account tweeted today. “By mapping while I drive, I may be able to cover up to 5 or 6 times more distance in a day. Good, since there’s so much to get to!”

More on Perseverance: NASA Releases Breathtaking Panorama From New Rover


As a Futurism reader, we invite you join the Singularity Global Community, our parent company’s forum to discuss futuristic science & technology with like-minded people from all over the world. It’s free to join, sign up now!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise?

-
Image
  There are a lot of people, but the oceans are very big.   Rosley Majid/EyeEm via Getty Images If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise? March 29, 2021 2.07pm SAST Author Tony E. Wong Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology Disclosure statement Tony E. Wong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners Rochester Institute of Technology  provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. The Conversation is funded by the National Research Foundation, eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Wester...
Read more

Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

-
Image
  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen...
Read more

Which countries have the world’s largest coal reserves?

-
Image
  Visual Capitalist Elements   | September 15, 2021 | 8:58 am   Intelligence   Australia   USA   Coal   The Countries With the Largest Coal Reserves Cheap and abundant coal remains one of the largest sources of energy worldwide, even as governments set out goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While jurisdictions in Europe and North America have been phasing out coal use in power generation, it has been on the rise in Asia. China and India are scrambling to provide electricity to a growing population and relying on coal power plants to meet demands despite the environmental costs. SIGN UP FOR THE ENERGY DIGEST Sign Up This infographic takes a look into the  BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 , and the 11 countries that make up  89%  of the coal reserves globally. Coal Reserves, by Country While countries need to phase out coal by 2040 to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, consumption in key ...
Read more