Cellphone users ‘will mostly stay put’

an account into which they have invested a lot of time, money and emotion

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Hatred and despair?

Really, how many people have such a close relationship with their cellphone contract? Thinking having children with it are they?

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

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So customers are thinking of leaving due to their prices, but instead of addressing those prices they'll spend money on more service, which the customers don't care about?

Well I'm not one of the 'mostly' crowd - I'm switching asap.

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.

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Once MNP comes into play people are going to know about it - I can see the likes of Virgin and CellC making sure of that.

Agree bwana.
I was at the checkout paying for my groceries the other day and there were some students in MTN garb doing the marketing thing.
A bloke behind me started to quiz the MTN guy about MNP.
He didn't know to much really but in no time at all there was a little crowd gathered all very curious about the fact that they (in the future) can change networks without loosing their numbers.

IMHO the providers are a lot more wary of this than they are letting on.
There might not be a mass exodus, but every customer will 'immediately' become more valuable to the provider, especially as the average revenues per user (ARPU) has been on a steady decline (35% down from 2001 to 2005 according to research by BMI-T,, see post Driving Mobile Revenues)

I'm certain that any one of the providers will be loathe to lose any customers (albeit how small a percentage) due to this and that Goldstruck perhaps underestimates the marketing power of a company like Virgin.
Sure interconnect costs are a big issue, but with rising interest rates and general cost of living on the increase, people will no doubt be feeling the pinch and that will directly impact on where they choose to source their telecoms from.

How about reducing the contracts down to 1 year now?

This just means that the factors keeping people on one network becomes less. I'm very sure that a lot of users just stay on one network because they don't want to go through the hassle of having to give everyone their new number. Human beings are lazy things, but are also very aware of what they pay for things. So if they can make it really easy to swop networks at any time, then a lot of people will be doing so.

So like said above, it will make all the customers so much more valuable to try and keep. Which can only be a good thing!

ARPU might be declining overall but what's the ARPU for contract users? Remember seeing somewhere a while ago that Nashua's ARPU was around R580, presumably from their contract users. If its similar for other SP's the networks have a lot to lose. Most prepaid users aren't as worried about losing their numbers anyway and can already change without any hassle or paperwork. So I think the networks are probably worried about this because it'll affect their contract/business customers which is where the real money is.
wouldn't be surprised if you have networks/SPs making bids to big companies offering to take over all their cellphone users and accounts at preferential rates, reduced rates for calling users in the same company etc.
Could make things interesting.

Bang on the money Syndyre.
Its gonna upset the preverbial apple cart in a big way.