Vodacom believes South Africa could be ready to switch off its 3G networks within 12 to 24 months, but only if the mobile operators move together. Dejan Kastelic, Vodacom Group’s chief technology officer, said so in an interview with TechCentral on Wednesday 28 October 2026. It is an expectation from one operator’s technology chief, not an announced shutdown date, and nothing in the interview commits Vodacom, MTN, Telkom or Cell C to a timetable.
What Kastelic actually said
“We would be super keen to switch off 3G in all of the markets, not only South Africa,” Kastelic told TechCentral. He added that Vodacom sees a chance that “potentially in the next 12-24 months” it will be “in a good position in South Africa to actually do the shutdown”, but that this is something Vodacom “will need to discuss with other involved parties to co-ordinate”.
His case rests on a number: handsets that cannot use 4G now make up “slightly below 10%” of devices on Vodacom’s South African network. Turning 3G off would free radio frequencies that Vodacom could refarm, meaning reassign, to 4G, which carries more traffic over the same bandwidth.
Why no operator wants to go first
The obstacle Kastelic described is competitive rather than technical. An operator that switches off first risks handing its remaining 3G customers to a rival. In his words: “If you’re the first one, the second one will wait for a while, get all of those customers onto its 3G network, subsidise them and only then shut down.”
His proposed answer is a shared date. Operators would agree on it, announce it a year ahead and run trade-in promotions in the meantime, so that all of them are in the same position when the date arrives. Whether the other networks would sign up to that is not known, and the TechCentral article does not quote them on the idea.
2G is expected to outlast 3G
Vodacom’s sequencing is the reverse of what many customers might assume. TechCentral reported in May that Vodacom expected to retire 3G before 2G. Vodacom spokesman Byron Kennedy said then that demand for 3G device support is lower than demand for 2G devices on its network, and that most 3G devices can fall back to 2G. This week Kastelic said he expects 2G, which still serves feature phones and machine-to-machine devices, to last several years longer than 3G.
After 3G goes, most 3G-only phones would drop back to 2G. Kastelic said he expects to allow six to 12 months for those users to move from 2G straight to 4G. Only then would Vodacom look at who is left, whether machines or people on feature phones, and decide what investment and subsidies are needed. For business customers this is the part to read closely: tracking units, telemetry and similar equipment that depend on older networks are the likely stragglers. The May article quotes Cell C saying such devices are often deployed in remote or hard-to-reach locations and are built to stay in service for long periods.
Policy: government left the timing to operators
A 3G switch-off no longer has a government deadline hanging over it. In 2024 the communications department’s spectrum policy had set 31 December 2027 as the latest date for a total shutdown of 2G and 3G, as TechCentral reported at the time. Communications minister Solly Malatsi then said the process should be market led. Speaking in November 2024, he warned that imposing a deadline would leave “millions and millions of South Africans” behind, “most of whom are poor”, and the same article quotes him as saying around 20 million South Africans rely on 2G and 3G devices. According to this week’s TechCentral report, his department formally dropped the 2027 deadline in July 2025. We could not locate the departmental notice itself, so that date rests on TechCentral’s account, and we found no ICASA document setting a 3G switch-off schedule.
Device prices are the practical constraint. TechCentral’s May article cites a report commissioned by the Development Bank of Southern Africa that found a “decently capable” 4G smartphone costs more than 16% of the basic minimum wage, about R800 at current levels. Treasury scrapped the 9% luxury excise duty on smartphones costing R2 500 or less. TechCentral’s October article dates that to April 2025, while its May article says February 2025, which most likely reflects the announcement and the start of the change respectively. We have not checked Treasury’s own documents. On the operator side, TechCentral reports Vodacom introduced a R249 4G smartphone in September 2024, and that MTN began distributing R99 4G handsets to longstanding prepaid customers in 2025, a programme the May article says was aimed at 1.2-million customers.
What it means for businesses
Nothing changes today. Counting 12 to 24 months from Kastelic’s interview points to a window between late 2027 and late 2028, and only if the operators agree a date and give the year’s notice he proposes. Companies that run vehicle trackers, alarm panels, payment terminals, card readers or staff handsets should check which of them are 3G-only, and which of them fall back to 2G, because after a shutdown those would be the devices left on the older network. The same applies to any contract that specifies 3G connectivity. A year’s notice is the figure Kastelic floated for the operators’ own announcement, so planning ahead of it costs little.
The spectrum angle matters beyond Vodacom. Freeing 3G frequencies is the stated reason for the switch-off, and capacity on 4G and 5G is what the networks sell. Our reports on Vodacom’s compact antenna trial and on what African operators pay for spectrum cover other ways operators are chasing capacity, and our ranking of South Africa’s biggest telecoms companies shows who would be party to any joint decision. Regulatory moves are collected in our Tech & Telco section.
What is still unknown
MTN, Telkom and Cell C have not committed to the 12 to 24 month window in anything we have read, and no joint date exists. The share of 3G-only devices on rival networks is not in the interview, and Vodacom has not said how many customers or machine connections the “slightly below 10%” represents. Kastelic’s remarks also do not say whether ICASA, which licenses spectrum, would need to approve changes before Vodacom could refarm the frequencies.
