• Econet plans to retire its third-generation network by December 2027
• Zimbabwe’s internet traffic rose 57.3% in the first quarter of 2026
• Kenya, South Africa and Eswatini show three different African migration paths shaped by device affordability, coverage and regulation

Harare - Econet Wireless Zimbabwe plans to retire its third-generation (3G) mobile network by the end of December 2027, beginning a major reallocation of spectrum and infrastructure toward fourth-generation (4G) and fifth-generation (5G) services as data traffic becomes increasingly important to Zimbabwe’s telecommunications market.

Chief executive Douglas Mboweni said only a small proportion of Econet customers still use 3G services, with the company planning to retain its second-generation (2G) network for longer because feature phones remain widely used, particularly among customers requiring basic voice and messaging services. Econet is also considering affordable devices and flexible payment structures to support migration onto newer networks. 

The decision comes after 3G spent more than a decade as an important layer of Zimbabwe’s mobile broadband infrastructure. Econet began expanding 3G coverage across urban and rural markets around 2011, introduced 4G in 2013 and launched 5G services in Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls in 2022. The company is now running all four network generations simultaneously. 

That architecture carries an increasingly visible economic cost. At the end of 2025, Econet operated 2,981 2G base stations, 1,997 3G stations, 1,825 4G stations and 340 5G stations, giving it 7,143 active base stations across the four technologies. The same network carried about 81% of Zimbabwe’s mobile internet and data traffic during the fourth quarter. 

The physical size of the 3G network makes the retirement decision commercially significant. Almost 2,000 sites were still carrying 3G at the end of 2025, slightly above Econet’s 4G site count at that point. Shutting the technology therefore involves substantial work across radio equipment, customer devices, voice services and coverage replacement before spectrum can be fully redeployed.

The underlying traffic economics have already moved strongly toward data. Zimbabwe’s internet traffic increased 57.28% in the first quarter of 2026, even as active mobile subscriptions increased only 2.99%. During the same quarter, operators added 161 fourth-generation Long Term Evolution sites and 13 fifth-generation sites, increased international internet bandwidth and expanded fibre infrastructure. 

Econet’s own financial year ended February 2026 provides further evidence of that shift. Data volumes doubled during the year and the company added 200 base stations, including 95 fifth-generation sites. Revenue reached US$1.104 billion, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of US$459 million and net earnings of US$229 million. 

Spectrum becomes central to the economics because frequencies allocated to 3G remain valuable after customer traffic migrates elsewhere. Retiring the older technology allows an operator to reuse those frequencies for 4G and 5G, where each unit of spectrum can support considerably larger data volumes and newer applications. The Global System for Mobile Communications Association says legacy-network retirement can also reduce maintenance contracts, improve energy efficiency and simplify network and device portfolios. 

For Econet, that creates a route for extracting greater output from an existing spectrum asset. The company can move traffic onto newer radios, concentrate engineering resources on fewer technologies and direct capital toward fibre backhaul, additional 4G capacity, 5G deployment and power resilience. These investments support a customer base increasingly using video, cloud applications, digital payments, social media and enterprise services.

The commercial relevance extends into operating costs. Every network generation requires software support, maintenance expertise, replacement components, electricity and radio equipment. Keeping an older layer operating for a shrinking customer group raises the cost of serving each remaining user. Network rationalisation allows those fixed costs to be spread across technologies carrying greater traffic volumes.

Econet is pursuing that transition from a position of substantial market scale. At the end of 2025, the company held about 73.75% of Zimbabwe’s active mobile subscriptions and carried 130.18 petabytes of data during the fourth quarter. Data and internet services had already risen to more than half of mobile-network revenue across the sector during that period. 

The African comparison shows that the timing of legacy-network retirement varies considerably with handset economics and network maturity. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, 3G remains widely used, and the Global System for Mobile Communications Association has warned that network retirement will progress gradually because millions of customers and connected machines still rely on older technologies. Earlier projections had 3G accounting for roughly a third of regional mobile connections as late as 2030. 

Kenya provides a useful East African comparison. The country has not adopted an imminent nationwide 3G shutdown timetable. Its Communications Authority reported that 4G coverage had reached 97.3% of the population by June 2025, with 5G coverage at 30%. Fourth-generation connections accounted for 81.2% of mobile broadband subscriptions, and smartphone penetration was reported at 83.5%. 

The migration has continued through customer behaviour. By the third quarter of Kenya’s 2025/26 financial year, the Communications Authority said 2G and 3G subscriptions were continuing to decline as users moved onto 4G and 5G. Average mobile broadband consumption reached 15.1 gigabytes per subscription, with fifth-generation users consuming an average 53.5 gigabytes. 

Kenya therefore shows a market-led route in which operators continue operating legacy networks as the subscriber base progressively migrates. The country’s nearly universal 4G population coverage gives operators a strong technical foundation for eventual rationalisation, though feature-phone usage and machine-to-machine connections continue to make immediate shutdown less attractive.

Southern Africa is moving faster in selected markets. South Africa has set December 2027 as the policy horizon for retiring 2G and 3G networks, with operators already using handset programmes to accelerate migration. The Global System for Mobile Communications Association reported that one operator made low-cost 4G handsets available to more than 1.2 million prepaid customers at R99 as part of a digital-inclusion programme. 

Eswatini has gone further on devices. Its communications regulator introduced a ban from 30 November 2025 on new imports and type approvals for 2G- and 3G-only devices, supporting a planned nationwide legacy-network retirement by 2028. 

These regional approaches expose the largest constraint facing Econet’s programme. Network infrastructure can move faster than household devices. Across Africa, affordability remains the largest barrier to mobile internet adoption, with approximately 63% of Africans living within mobile broadband coverage but not using mobile internet in 2025. Mobile technologies contributed about US$240 billion, or 7.8% of African gross domestic product, during the year, yet the usage gap remained substantially larger than the coverage gap. 

The device threshold is particularly important for customers using 3G-only smartphones. Those users need a 4G-capable handset to continue using mobile broadband after the retirement date. The Global System for Mobile Communications Association estimates that a US$40 smartphone could make mobile internet affordable for an additional 20 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a US$30 device extending affordability to as many as 50 million additional people. 

That brings Zimbabwe’s handset market directly into Econet’s network strategy. Device financing, instalment purchases, lower-cost imports and operator-supported upgrades can influence how quickly the remaining 3G customer base migrates. South Africa’s subsidised handset programmes and Eswatini’s import restrictions show that network retirement increasingly requires intervention on both the infrastructure and device sides of the market.

Coverage remains equally important. Zimbabwean operators added 85 3G sites during the first quarter of 2026 even as investment accelerated into 4G and 5G, showing that older technologies were still serving areas requiring additional connectivity.  Econet’s retirement programme therefore has to replace the practical coverage currently supplied by those sites before the December 2027 deadline.

The decision also has implications for NetOne and Telecel. Econet’s subscriber and traffic dominance means its technology choices can influence handset inventories, customer expectations and spectrum use across the entire market. A substantial migration of Econet customers toward 4G-capable devices enlarges the addressable market for similar services offered by competing operators and can accelerate the commercial decline of 3G across Zimbabwe.

The forward evidence is measurable. Econet’s 4G base-station count needs to move above the legacy 3G footprint, the proportion of traffic carried on 3G should continue declining, customers using 3G-only devices need to migrate, and fourth-generation voice through Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) must become sufficiently available for customers moving away from older voice technologies.

Zimbabwe’s 3G retirement is therefore arriving at a point when the economics of the mobile market have already changed materially. Internet traffic is growing much faster than subscriber numbers, Econet is deploying capital into newer network technologies, and data has become the largest revenue line across the mobile sector. Kenya shows how high 4G coverage can allow legacy usage to decline gradually, while South Africa and Eswatini demonstrate faster migration supported by regulatory deadlines and device programmes.

Econet’s December 2027 date now places a defined timetable around that transition in Zimbabwe. The operating evidence over the next 15 months will come from fourth-generation coverage, handset migration, spectrum reuse, data traffic and the number of 3G sites that can be retired without reducing access for the customers that still rely on them.

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