Mobile Number Portability’s slow progress
Vodacom, the only provider which is transparent regarding the movement of users to and from their network, has reported 60 new subscribers joining its network and 40 leaving it.
Vodacom has further indicated that around 2300 people have shown an interest in moving to Vodacom while 230 were planning to move to another network.
As the largest operator, many sources predicted that Vodacom would suffer significant losses due to MNP, but these predictions now seem unlikely to become a reality.
Neither CellC nor MTN could provide any concrete figures regarding MNP migrations to and from their network to date, but early indications are that neither of these companies saw any major gains or losses through MNP.
MTN did not want to say whether they have seen a net gain or net loss, and merely stated that “customers are porting in and out of the growing MTN network, without glitches. We are welcoming customers to the MTN family comfortably.”
CellC said that the migrations between networks were slow, but that it was something that they expected.
CellC has also not seen significant net gains or losses so far. “Excluding the number of applications we are still processing, currently we are about even with net gains and net losses,” said Vanashree Pillay, Executive Head: Corporate Communications at CellC.
Despite numerous fruitless attempts yesterday to reach the Virgin Mobile communications department for comment, they eventually came back with a response today. They could unfortunately not divulge any information at present but stated that MNP was going “very, very well” for them.
The inability to easily reach the new entrant into the market for comment does not bode well for those thinking of migrating to them as customers.
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.
The migration between networks so far has been so insubstantial that some people may argue that the multimillion Rand investment by the cellular providers may have been better spent on other endeavors.
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.
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