South Africa’s mobile operators no longer have a formal deadline to switch off their 2G and 3G cellular networks, with government leaving it up to them to decide the appropriate timing.

The move, formally announced in parliament on Wednesday, does not mean government is no longer agitating for the operators to switch to more modern technologies, including 4G/LTE and 5G, as quickly as possible — but it will no longer force them into cutting off 2G and 3G services according to a set timeline.

Government had previously set a revised deadline of December 2027 to switch off both network carrier technologies.

Speaking at a portfolio committee meeting, in which the department of communications & digital technologies presented its revised five-year strategic plan and annual performance plan, department officials said that in the current financial year – April 2025 to March 2026 – the following has happened or will happen:

Quarter 1 (April to June 2025): Consultations with communications regulator Icasa on the sunsetting of 2G and 3G.
Quarter 2 (July to September 2025): Consultations with the MNOs to establish a monitoring framework.
Quarter 3 (October to December 2025): The development of the monitoring framework.
Quarter 4 (January to March 2026): The process of switching off legacy infrastructure begins.

The department emphasised that it will no longer dictate to the mobile network operators (MNOs) about when they should switch off 2G and 3G towers – rather, this will be a commercial decision by the operators when it makes sense for them to terminate services in defined areas.

TechCentral has previously reported that the MNOs are expected to switch off their 3G networks before they terminate 2G services because there are many legacy services, including telematics systems, that are still reliant on 2G.

Vodacom, MTN and some other network operators have said they will narrow the spectrum they use for 2G to a sliver, but have warned that they won’t be able to terminate 2G for many years to come. Telkom is an outlier here, as it never built an extensive 2G network and has already shifted most of its customers to 4G/LTE.

Communications minister Solly Malatsi first announced last November that he was keen to shift government’s position regarding the shutdown of 2G and 3G mobile networks in South Africa, when he told an audience in Cape Town that it should be left to the operators to decide when to do so.

Speaking at a Mobile Monday event, Malatsi said government forcefully imposing a deadline for the shutdown of legacy networks risked excluding large sections of the population that relied on older devices for their connectivity needs.

“While there is a determination to get towards the sunsetting of 2G and 3G, I think the most important thing is that it has to be market led instead of a government imposition of a deadline,” he said. “If you do that (impose a deadline), you are going to leave millions and millions of South Africans — most of whom are poor — behind.”

Industry colloquium

In the previous administration, former minister Mondli Gungubele set 31 December 2027 as the deadline for the sunsetting of 2G and 3G networks in South Africa. Gungubele, an ANC MP, is now deputy minister to Malatsi, a Democratic Alliance MP, in the government of national unity.

Read: 2G and 3G shutdown in SA a big headache for merchants

Meanwhile, the department also revealed to the committee on Wednesday that it plans to convene an industry colloquium in the coming months to gather stakeholder inputs on upcoming legislative changes, including to the Electronic Communications Act. It plans to finalise a framework “for processing” by the end of the financial year next March. — (c) 2025 NewsCentral Media

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