Mobile Number Portability’s slow progress

While Richard Branson may have thrown his toys out of the cot because of the lack of urgency from ICASA and Government regarding MNP and even accused other operators of ‘sabotaging the MNP process’, he may be well advised to first look at the effectiveness of his own company before pointing fingers.
Click to expand...
Ouch. Frankly he was right to make a fuss - pity it had to be a foreigner on the front lines.

It would be nice to see him getting into broadband - we could use some advocacy there too.
 
bwana v.21 said:
Ouch. Frankly he was right to make a fuss - pity it had to be a foreigner on the front lines.

It would be nice to see him getting into broadband - we could use some advocacy there too.
Click to expand...

Agree, it was super of Branson to kick up dust and help the thing along, just wish he'd jack up the comms dept while he's at it :D

I think companies should ban their media liaison officer from going to meetings, would make reporting much easier.
 
I don't think people realise that alot of subscribers have the remainder of their contract to sort out first before they can even consider going to another network. It's not like 10 million people are waiting in the wings to tranfer to another operator. It will take a few months for any action.

My contract expired earlier this year and I have had numerous calls to extend my contract. They obviously didn't mention anything to me about MNP and many people still don't know about it. The operator was offering very attractive deals to me to extend for another 2 years. Who knows how many people fell for it.
 
I have another 13 months before my 2 contracts expire. I will not give them the satisfaction and pay them R7000 in order to cancel them early. :D :D
 
i'll be out of the country during december so im not going to sign up for a contract that i won't be using for a month. Also waiting to see whether this MNP thing passes without glitches before i make a move (which i want to)
 
Now let's see: took them years to implement it. Plainly would never have happened if it wasn't for RB agitating. Only reason it happened was him and saving an international incident on their lack of delivery and reluctance to give the consumer any choice.

Now it's happened but a week later 'the incumbents' are complaining BooHoo we could have spent the money on better things, like a new porsche. MNP (like cheap broadband and accessibility) should be a consumers right - but boohoo we had to spend all this money on it.

Sickening rhetoric. If only our own 'esteemed personages' like Shuttleworth would put some pressure on this government maybe we would move forward, but no, it takes Branson all the way from his tropical island to do same.

Disgusting - and then still have the cheek to complain about the money they spent and the fact the whole country didn't immediately change their providers. Ugh.
 
Last edited:
Having said this, it was unlikely that the money would have been spent on anything that would have encouraged lower prices, so better that it was invested into a system which may in the long-term benefit consumers.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Rather have them invest in something that shows promise especially for the future than have them not do anything at all - which is synonymous with the telecoms arena as far as lowering prices is concerned.
 
Anyone know where this ugly terms comes from: "claw back fee".

Well, I also have lots of months left on my contract.

MTN wants me to pay the remainder of the months' Service Fee, which is fair (since I did agree to a 24month contract), but now they also want to charge a "claw back fee" of about 80% of the value of the phone!

Funny thing is that all their phones (on contracts), including this one, is advertised as FREE.

What would the legal term be for asking for money for something you gave for Free, before allowing number transfer?

Jacques
 
Jacques said:
Anyone know where this ugly terms comes from: "claw back fee".

Well, I also have lots of months left on my contract.

MTN wants me to pay the remainder of the months' Service Fee, which is fair (since I did agree to a 24month contract), but now they also want to charge a "claw back fee" of about 80% of the value of the phone!

Funny thing is that all their phones (on contracts), including this one, is advertised as FREE.

What would the legal term be for asking for money for something you gave for Free, before allowing number transfer?

Jacques
Click to expand...
If they're making you pay the full rate for the contract that phone should be yours!

Tell em where they can stick that claw.
 
I think we'll see MNP take off as people's contracts begin to expire or at least its effects on competition. Vodacom hasn't seemed to bother competing on contract pricing for a long while, apparently relying on the fact that the majority of there customers rely on number retention, rather than trying to promote loyalty. Lets face it in price consious SA people are more likely to go for cheaper contracts with free psp's and dvd players when they are offered the option.

As to the figures regarding customers intentions to change networks its not suprising to find that more have inquired about porting to vodacom than people who have expressed their intent to port away from them. After all theres no reason to inform your network that youre planning to change networks other than as a threat in retaliation for bad service.
 
I sent in my request to port to virgin yesterday (see the link in my sig to see how the process went) - but it seemed very easy (those virgin people answer the phone fast ...) ... I have it ported by next week

But personally I think as many people as possible should be porting so as to let the networks know we will go to who we think is best ... and slowly they might get the message that price is important
 
martmeister said:
I don't think people realise that alot of subscribers have the remainder of their contract to sort out first before they can even consider going to another network. It's not like 10 million people are waiting in the wings to tranfer to another operator. It will take a few months for any action.

My contract expired earlier this year and I have had numerous calls to extend my contract. They obviously didn't mention anything to me about MNP and many people still don't know about it. The operator was offering very attractive deals to me to extend for another 2 years. Who knows how many people fell for it.
Click to expand...

yip thats true.. lots of ppl are in contracts so they cant change anyway.
Think MNP immediately affects only 2 or 3 % of the population. But for prepaid its a big plus.

rph ur one of th rich ppl that can afford to move,...lol.. R7000 is a lot of money for normal ppl.
 
Let me get this right....

Vodacom.... MTN..... Cell C
Contributed R 100m each to have the system inplemented for MNP.

Vodacom gained 20 client.

R 100m / 20

So Vodacom paid R 5m per client..... What a waist of Money !!!!
 
Kilps
You say your number will be ported by next week? Is the number still working during this time on the old netwrok? Why the delay? (soz if its a doff question :o)
 
Sneeky said:
Kilps
You say your number will be ported by next week? Is the number still working during this time on the old netwrok? Why the delay? (soz if its a doff question :o)
Click to expand...
No I am meant to be getting my Virgin sim card this week (they deliver) which will have a temporary number assigned to it - to make sure that I have the sim before it happens they are going to sent through the porting request next week monday so it should be done by tuesday ... my cell c account i guess should keep working ...
 
to sneeky, there will be no downtime when it comes to MNP, actually at one point of the porting process, u might be activiated on 2 networks!, but of course ull never actually know when, unless u swap simcards really fast.

On another note :
Then all the networks seem to act as if they've been net gainers, so who the hell is the net loser? someone has to lose, lets wait till all the operators comment on their net gain/loss, it'll be a good laugh.
 
Question?

Virgin which is in essence Cell C uses Vodacom's network?

The reason I ask is if someone ports to Virgin, will they still have the same coverage and quality of service as far as signal goes?
 
I had excellent service from Virgin Mobile. Had my number set-up for porting on Saturday. Went to a Virgin point inside Musica. Had my new sim activated my V100 account approved (you need a credit check), all this done in 20 min. Phoned their support line and I spoke to a consultant 30sec after making the call. Had MNP set for same day. Monday they let me know Vodacom does not want to release my number. I know my contract had expired, phoned Vodacom after 40 minutes of holding on to speak to someone I hanged up and went to a shop. They then told me there was something wrong and will fix it. Heard yesterday from Virgin its all ok now and porting will commence. Vodacom has no service compared to the quick response from Virgin. I am one of those 40 who left. Well I am glad I cost them R 5mil to get some service out of them. I had a contract with them for eight years. I wonder how many people cant port because Vodacom don't let them even if they can. I had no problem with signal quality or reception on the Virgin network.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X