• TelkomONE is dead and in its place is SABC Plus.
• This streaming service is free to access and use and will feature a variety of live sport including 29 FIFA World Cup 2022 matches.
• SABC Plus still offers the same AMP packages available through TelkomONE, despite that platform now being defunct.

This is a weird one, TelkomONE which launched at the tail end of 2020 is now SABC Plus.

Yes, the national broadcaster has seemingly taken over the reigns of the platform, given it a lick of paint and changed the name. We say this because not all that much has changed as of time of writing. We can even log into the service using our TelkomONE credentials.

The only remaining mention of Telkom is with the AMP packages for SABC Plus which included up to 1.8GB of data for streaming when purchasing a monthly subscription.

“This is a great milestone for the SABC and it’s also very great for our audiences. It’s a very inter-active platform and they can use it in a manner that can be able to view all our content whether you are talking radio, television, drama and all the great content that we have,” SABC group chief executive officer, Madoda Mxakwe said in a statement.

As for what you can watch, all three SABC broadcast channels are available to stream as are SABC News, SABC Sport and SABC Education. You can also stream all 19 SABC radio stations.

As Mxakwe mentions above, moving away from the Telkom name has some benefits such as being able to broadcast the PSL. The CEO also mentions that 29 of the 64 FIFA World Cup 2022 matches will be broadcast on SABC Sport. It may not be all of the matches that Showmax Pro is offering, but 29 matches for free isn’t a bad shout.

For now, streaming is limited to the SABC Plus website which can be accessed via smartphones but we cannot find an app for Android or iOS despite the SABC stating the app is available on those storefronts.

As part of the launch of SABC Plus, the broadcaster has partnered with Hisense to distribute the app on VIDAA powered smart TVS.

While the SABC talks up how hard it worked developing this platform, we’re struggling to see how it differs from TelkomONE at all.

With that having been said, offering live sport is a golden ticket in the realm of streaming and perhaps with SABC wholly behind this platform, it can achieve more success than TelkomONE could.