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

Russia Says Its Nuclear-Powered Space Tug Can Detect, Disable & Shoot-Down Enemy Spacecraft From The Orbit

-

 The Russian nuclear-powered tug Zeus, which is equipped with a megawatt-class electric propulsion system, can be used to disable control systems of enemy spacecraft with an electromagnetic impulse and “shoot” laser beams, according to a paper of the Arsenal design bureau, part of Russia’s Roscosmos.

In May, the Keldysh Research Center released a paper showing that Zeus can be used in anti-aircraft defense, detecting air targets from the orbit and relaying information to anti-aircraft systems.

“In 2018-2019, the Arsenal design bureau conducted the ‘Yadro’ [Core] research project that reviewed options for using a spacecraft with a megawatt-class nuclear power propulsion system to perform the following tasks — probing the Earth surface and the near-Earth air space from a distance; electromagnetic interference with electronic components of control, reconnaissance, communication and navigation systems; directed-energy laser emission,” the Arsenal paper read.

The Zeus nuclear-powered space tug is designed for deep space flights from one orbit to another. It has been in development since 2010. The spacecraft’s preliminary design is expected to be finished by July 2024 and will cost 4.2 billion rubles.

Earlier, the Russian Keldysh Research Center said that it plans to test a drip refrigerator-emitter for the nuclear-powered tug on board the International Space Station (ISS), new data on the state procurement website shows.

The new tests on board the ISS will follow the unsuccessful drip refrigerator-emitter experiment carried out in 2014, when an abrupt failure of some technological components did not, nonetheless, prevent scientists from collecting valuable data.

The Zeus nuclear-powered space tug designed for deep space flights from one orbit to another has been in development since 2010 in Russia. The nuclear-propelled space tug is designed to fly to the moon and planets of the solar system to search for extraterrestrial life. All the scientific and research and development works on the project are called Nuklon.

A prototype of Zeus was first exhibited at the International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS-2019. A 3D animation of its deployment in orbit was shown at the International Military-Technical Forum ARMY-2020.

The preliminary design of Zeus is expected to be finished by July 2024 and will cost 4.2 billion rubles ($57.3 million). The tug is expected to be sent into space for test flights in 2030.

Read More

Watch: The Ultimate Dogfight Between US & Russian Fighter Jets Over A ‘Top-Secret’ Air Base In Nevada

30 Times Faster Than Speed Of Sound: Is China Really Winning The Hypersonic Race With Its JF-22 Wind Tunnel?


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