What's the story? South Africa to sunset 2G and 3G

Connecting Africa's Paula Gilbert provides an update on Safaricom's new network in Ethiopia, which will be the country's first private telecoms operator and end the country's decades-long telecoms monopoly.

We also discuss why South Africa's government wants to turn off 2G and 3G by 2024 and 2025, respectively, but operators say it's too soon as about 60% of mobile traffic in South Africa still runs on 3G.

You can download a lightly edited transcript of the podcast here.

Here are a few topics we covered:

• Safaricom launches new network in Ethiopia. (01:18)
• Role of Ethiopia's government in Safaricom's launch in the region. (04:30)
• Government in South Africa wants service providers to sunset 2G and 3G. (05:38)
• Potential impact of turning off 2G and 3G on mobile phone users. (09:17)

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