The ANC spent its early years in government shielding Telkom from competition based on the idea that the company, which had been partly privatised in the 1990s, wouldn’t deploy services in rural areas if it wasn’t protected from the vagaries of the free market.

The prevailing theory — in the ruling party, at least — was that the private sector would never connect underserviced areas of its own volition. It just wasn’t profitable...

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