{"id":551111,"date":"2006-12-17T09:49:22","date_gmt":"2006-12-17T09:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/551111-mobile-number-portability-a-flop.html"},"modified":"2006-12-17T09:49:22","modified_gmt":"2006-12-17T09:49:22","slug":"mobile-number-portability-a-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/551111-mobile-number-portability-a-flop.html","title":{"rendered":"Mobile number portability a flop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firstly, one has to look at the large pre-paid market. With the majority of users being pre-paid and SIM cards being sold for as little as R1.99 at shops like Pick n Pay, is it really worth going to all the effort to retain your number when you can buy another SIM card and be connected in seconds? <\/font><\/p>\n

Then there are the contract users. Many contract holders who really wanted a cheaper option would most likely have already gone to a cheaper network. For the rest there are a myriad of reasons that make it just not worth the effort to change networks. <\/font><\/p>\n

The main one is having to pay out on the existing contract. Then there are other factors like multiple numbers on one account. I have three cellphone numbers on my account \u2013 a business line, a personal line and my wife\u2019s line. Trying to move them would be a nightmare. And for many it\u2019s not just about the call costs. What about data and SMS bundles and subscriptions? <\/font><\/p>\n

All of these need to be reloaded on the new network, if the new network supports them. All of those services come with their own pricing, which means researching MNP involves a whole lot more than just the price of calls.<\/font> <\/p>\n

But let\u2019s says you researched all of this and your contract came up for renewal, the numerous delays prior to MNP coming into effect on November 10 probably put you off. <\/font><\/p>\n

And if it wasn\u2019t the delays before, then there are the delays in having your number ported. It\u2019s hard to say how widespread these delays have been, but there have certainly been numerous reports of users waiting up to a week with no reception. Given how reliant most people are on their cellphones, this kind of downtime is unacceptable for most.<\/font> <\/p>\n

But there are those who have ported and there is likely to be a continual movement of users, even if it is a trickle. There will always be people who get bad service and want to move as a result or those who just want a change. <\/font><\/p>\n

For now the most action provided by MNP is the cellular networks making amusing adverts trying to convince consumers MNP is all they make it out to be.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Discuss this article<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given the dynamics of the South Africa cellular market, its no surprise mobile number portability (MNP) was a flop. There\u2019s been a lot of talk as to why it\u2019s been a non-event. Apart from the fact that it was hyped by the likes of Virgin Mobile, there are some factors that have not really been spoken about.<\/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-551111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551111"}],"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=551111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}