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 ...

How much it costs to drive 100km in South Africa’s most popular cars

 

South African motorists are grappling with record-high petrol prices after seven months of increases in 2021. September’s increase also included a surprise slate levy which negated any possible decreases at the pumps.

Statistics South Africa’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July 2021 shows that fuel price has increased by 15.2% over the last year, said Mike Schüssler, consulting economist at Brenthurst Wealth.

“It is a large driver of inflation, and most has not come from the actual basic fuel or oil price, but from the increase in taxes, Road Accident Fund levies, transport costs, retail and wholesale margins.”

This has been reflected in the travel costs in South Africans who have begun to return to work after months of lockdown and working from home.

While it is impossible to accurately track exactly how much petrol you will consume due to factors such as traffic and road quality, it is possible to get a rough estimate of how exactly these petrol prices will impact your current petrol allowance based on manufacturer estimates.

Below, BusinessTech looks at how much it will now cost you to travel 100km on South Africa’s roads right now based on Naamsa’s latest list of bestselling cars data for August 2021.


Volkswagen Polo hatch 1.0TSI Trendline – R293,800

  • 5.4 litres/100km
  • R99.03/100km


Polo Vivo hatch 1.4 Trendline – R224,300

  • 5.7 litres/100km
  • R104.53/100km


Toyota Starlet 1.4 Xi – R217,500

  • 5.1 litres/100km
  • R93.53/100km


Renault Kwid 1.0 Expression – R162,900

  • 4.7 litres/100km
  • R86.19/100km


Toyota Urban Cruiser 1.5 Xi – R255,300

  • 6.2 litres/100km
  • R113.70/100km


Suzuki S-Presso 1.0 GL – R149,900

  • 4.9 litres/100km
  • R89.86/100km


Corolla Quest 1.8 Plus – R282,600

  • 7 litres/100km
  • R128.38/100km

All prices are estimates and are based on the manufacturer’s average fuel consumption per/100km.

In each case, the manufacturer’s most and least expensive double-cab model was considered. 95 octane price (R18.34) as of September 2021 was used for comparison purposes.


Read: Plans for online driver licence and licence disk renewals in South Africa

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