Its free, you just have to pay for a new sim card on the new network.
No, it isn't. There is a SIM card AND an admin fee (R100 I think) for becoming a Virgin customer. They lie about there being no porting charges. There IS a charge, just by another name.
That said, I've just ported to Virgin as a prepaid credit customer from being an MTN contract customer. It was not hassle-free. Virgin messed up the porting application twice before they got it right. I gave a month's notice for the porting but on the set date it didn't happen which required another call from me. But it works.
Why have I switched? Simple - to save costs and my dislike of the cellular business model.
Cost-wise, on a contract, I'm in for say R170 before I make a call. It's cheaper for me to buy a phone cash when I want one. The Virgin per second billing model is more attractive. I resent paying MTN R2.50 odd for a 2 sec phone call. My calls tend to be short, so I will see how this pans out but my saving will surely be R150 pm. I can't see how I can lose and if it doesn't work I can get out any time while keeping my number.
Now. My major gripe is the cellular business model which is purely built around attracting new customers and churn. Customer retention does not come into it at all. After 8 years as a contract customer with MTN SP I receive nothing for customer longevity - no special deals, no loyalty programme, nothing more than any new customer gets and perhaps even less. Their web site sucks big time in terms of services and information it offers and it's even been up to me to determine when I'm due an upgrade which I then have to go and fetch which is a tedious and time-consuming process. I lie - a little - because this year they phoned me to tell me when I could get an upgrade. For this, MTN SP has received 30% of my call revenue for 8 years?
Long live porting. Because if Virgin doesn't work for me, I'll move on. Let's hope they realise this and get it right. They've certainly got a lot of work to do.
