The Léon Thévenin in Cape Town in an undated file photo Africa’s entire submarine cable network is served by just one permanently stationed repair vessel – based in Cape Town – leaving the continent exposed to lengthy internet outages, a major international report has warned. The final report of the International Advisory Body on Submarine…
Episode 7 of Watts & Wheels – TechCentral’s electric motoring show – opens with mock outrage: the South African Car of the Year results are in, and the Alfa Romeo Junior didn’t take the overall title. Hosts William Kelly and Duncan McLeod demand a recount – though they concede the Junior’s best design win takes…
South African companies are operating under sustained financial pressure in 2026. The Small Business Growth Index found that only 38% of South African small and medium enterprises (SMEs) surveyed in 2025 could survive more than a year under current cost pressures without external support. Now imagine these SMEs are hit by unexplained connectivity downtime. Both…
The Airtel Africa Foundation (AAF), the philanthropic arm of Airtel Africa plc, has released its inaugural annual report, highlighting its impact across the continent during its first full year of operations. According to the report, the Foundation committed $6.2 million to programmes under its Financial Inclusion, Education, Environmental Sustainability and Digital Inclusion (FEED) strategy, with…
The sheer scale of the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on South African internet infrastructure in recent days does not make sense considering the relatively small amounts the attackers are trying to extort. A senior South African network security specialist, who asked for anonymity given the nature of his work, told TechCentral on Tuesday that the…
Vox has taken every fixed broadband award in Opensignal’s latest South African benchmarking exercise, an outcome that puts a specialist internet service provider ahead of the country’s largest mobile operators on home connectivity. The comparison measured the performance of Herotel, Vodacom, Rain, MTN, Telkom and Vox across connections spanning fibre and fixed wireless access –…
Game on! Why a fast, reliable fibre internet connection is key to the success of SAʼs gaming landscape. In 2024, South Africaʼs gaming industry was valued at over R3 billion. While mobile gaming accounts for the majority of this revenue, more South Africans are turning to gaming as a form of social entertainment, and also…
A frowning stuffed horse has sold by the tens of thousands in China, garnering hundreds of millions of mentions on Chinese social media. Tony Dokoupil has more on its symbolism.
In the current global landscape of 2026, internet shutdowns have evolved into a standard tool for state-led subversion. Governments in Iran and Uganda have already enforced severe blackouts this year to stifle dissent, Iran to mask a crackdown on inflation-related protests and Uganda to control the narrative during a general election. As centralized infrastructure remains…
Spacecoin’s CTC-1 nanosatellite Internet shutdowns have become a tool for subversion in times of unrest. So far in 2026, Iran and Uganda both enforced severe internet blackouts to stifle dissent. Iran’s near-total shutdown masked a violent crackdown on inflation protests, while Uganda blocked access during its general election. Now US outfit Spacecoin is working on…
