{"id":550083,"date":"2006-09-06T07:17:42","date_gmt":"2006-09-06T07:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/550083-cellphone-users-will-mostly-stay-put.html"},"modified":"2006-09-06T07:17:42","modified_gmt":"2006-09-06T07:17:42","slug":"cellphone-users-will-mostly-stay-put","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/550083-cellphone-users-will-mostly-stay-put.html","title":{"rendered":"Cellphone users \u2018will mostly stay put\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cellular operators have invested about R300m in a switching centre to handle the process and a central database to track which number is on which network. <\/font><\/p>\n

But fresh research shows that only a fraction of customers are likely to use it over the next two years once it debuts on September 18. <\/font><\/p>\n

Of SA\u2019s 33-million cellphone users, only 5-million have a contract binding them to a specific operator. Of those, perhaps 10% would use number portability to hop from one network to another, according to research by World Wide Worx. <\/font><\/p>\n

Vodacom stands to lose the most because of its larger customer base, while MTN and Cell C should gain more than they lose because of their smaller customer bases, said World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck. <\/font><\/p>\n

He believes Cell C could capitalise if it did more to promote its industry leading prices, but he doubts that newly launched Virgin Mobile will see any major gains. <\/font><\/p>\n

The research found only 25% of consumers know what number portability is, but 71% of companies understand it because it could cut the cost of running their business. <\/font><\/p>\n

When the service was explained, 27% of consumers said they would switch, against 19% of small business and 22% of larger corporations. \u201cThat should ring some alarm bells for the operators,\u201d Goldstuck said. <\/font><\/p>\n

Vodacom has a 54% market share of corporate cellphone accounts \u2014 where Cell C is almost nonexistent, giving it plenty to play for. <\/font><\/p>\n

But the \u201cinertia factor\u201d would keep the figures down, said Goldstuck. \u201cIt takes a lot to get people to change an account into which they have invested a lot of time, money and emotion.\u201d He says fewer than half of those who say they will switch, will actually do so. <\/font><\/p>\n

The main reason for intending to switch is that people believe they will get a cheaper package elsewhere. Yet Goldstuck does not anticipate a price war. The networks were more likely to step up service or offer more products rather than cut the costs, he said. Just 10% of customers planning to switch were motivated by poor service.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Inet-Bridge ||\u00a0 <\/font>Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FEWER than 500000 cellphone users are likely to use a new service that will let them switch from one network to another and take their existing number with them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}