Vodacom says 3G could be switched off in 12 to 24 months, with under 10% of its phones still 3G-only

Vodacom could be ready to switch off its 3G network in South Africa within 12 to 24 months, Vodacom Group chief technology officer Dejan Kastelic told TechCentral this week. Handsets that cannot use 4G now make up "slightly below 10%" of the devices on Vodacom's South African network, a share Kastelic called "a good number".

There is a condition. Kastelic wants the operators to agree on a date together and announce it a year in advance, with trade-in promotions in the meantime so that, in his words, "by the time the date comes, all of us are in the same position."

For anyone still using an older phone, the practical question is what happens on the day. Kastelic said most 3G phones should fall back to 2G once 3G is gone. That keeps calls and SMS working. Data on 2G is very slow, so the phone would stop being useful for apps and browsing. A phone that only falls back to 2G is a phone for calls, not for the services people now treat as the point of a handset.

Why Vodacom wants 3G gone

Switching off 3G frees radio frequencies that Vodacom could refarm for 4G, which carries more traffic over the same spectrum. Kastelic said Vodacom would like to switch off 3G "in all of the markets, not only South Africa". The South African comment is one market inside a group preference. It is not a date for the other markets, and it is not a date here.

2G is a separate matter. It serves feature phones and machine-to-machine devices, and Kastelic expects it to outlast 3G by several years. Vodacom said in May that it expected 3G to go before 2G. "Let's first resolve 3G," Kastelic said. The order he described is 3G first, 2G later, and the later step is still measured in years rather than in the 12 to 24 months he gave for 3G.

No government deadline

There is no official switch-off date. Communications minister Solly Malatsi said in November 2024 that the shutdown should be market led, warning that an imposed date could leave behind "millions and millions of South Africans – most of whom are poor". His department formally dropped the 31 December 2027 deadline in July 2025, leaving the timing to the operators.

That creates the problem Kastelic described. An operator that switches off first risks losing its remaining 3G customers to a rival that keeps 3G running, absorbs those customers with subsidised phones, and only later shuts down its own network. A shared date removes that incentive. It needs MTN, Telkom and Cell C to agree, and none of them was part of this week's comments. Until they are, Vodacom's 12 to 24 months is one network's readiness, not an industry date.

What it means for phone buyers

Some of the affordability work has started. Treasury removed the 9% luxury excise duty on smartphones costing less than R2,500 from April 2025. MTN began giving R99 4G smartphones to longstanding prepaid customers in 2025 who could not afford to upgrade. Those are two different interventions, from two different companies, and neither is a Vodacom trade-in programme. Kastelic said trade-in promotions should run in the year before a shared date. He did not announce one this week.

Anyone buying a cheap phone now should check that it supports 4G with VoLTE, voice over LTE. A 4G phone without VoLTE still drops to older networks for voice calls, the networks operators want to retire. That check is the buying advice that follows from the interview. It is not a line Vodacom published as a consumer warning.

After 3G is switched off, Kastelic expects people on 2G to need six to 12 months to move to 4G. Vodacom would then look at who is left on 2G, mostly feature phones and machines, and decide what investment or subsidies are needed. The 2G decision is the one he put after the 3G switch-off, not inside the same 12 to 24 months.

What is unresolved

Vodacom's "below 10%" figure counts devices on its network, not people, and Vodacom did not say how many customers that is. A handset that falls back to 2G still counts as a device that will lose useful data. Calls and SMS survive. Apps do not. Kastelic put the cleanup of those 2G users in a later window of six to 12 months, after 3G is already off, and he said 2G itself should outlast 3G by several years because feature phones and machines still depend on it.

It also gave no date, only a window of 12 to 24 months, and only if the operators move together. The government date that used to exist, 31 December 2027, was dropped in July 2025 after Malatsi argued in November 2024 that an imposed shutdown would strand "millions and millions of South Africans – most of whom are poor". What remains is Kastelic's proposal: the operators agree on one day, announce it a year out, and use that year for trade-ins so that "by the time the date comes, all of us are in the same position." Treasury's removal of the 9% excise on phones under R2,500, and MTN's R99 4G handsets for longstanding prepaid customers, are the affordability steps already on the record. Neither is the shared date. Until MTN, Telkom and Cell C are in that conversation, South Africans with 3G-only phones have no fixed point to plan around.

Sources: TechCentral interview with Dejan Kastelic, 28 October 2026; TechCentral on Malatsi's November 2024 comments and the July 2025 decision to drop the 31 December 2027 deadline; Vodacom's May statement that 3G would go before 2G.