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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 ...

Zimbabwe licenses 57 cannabis producers as it eyes export market

 

Workers are seen inside a hemp farm on August 27, 2021 in Mazowe, Zimbabwe. Image: Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images Europe

Zimbabwe has licensed 57 foreign and local entities to grow medicinal cannabis in the southern African nation, the country’s investment agency said.

“We have licensed 57 investors for medicinal cannabis production from Germany, Switzerland, Canada and as well some local players,” Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency said in a statement on Sunday. “Companies have been licensed for cultivation and processing of medicinal cannabis and they own 100% of their investment.”

ZIDA said production has begun at some of the licensed farms which are spread across the country, and the Ministry of Lands is working with the agency, as well as the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe to ensure that the quality of the seeds imported meet regulatory requirements.

According to Treasury, sales of cannabis are forecast to reach $1.25 billion this year. Zimbabwe legalised medicinal cannabis production in 2018, but it hasn’t begun any exports.

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