- 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.