MTN is prioritising corporates as adopters of mobile number portability (MNP), and has already landed clients such as the City of Johannesburg, it says.
The company announced a 22% growth in subscriber numbers at its year-end results today.
MTN will port 2 700 numbers for the City of Johannesburg, with potential for more in the future, says MTN service provider CEO Buckley McGrath.
More than 400 subscribers have already been ported, and the rest will continue in a phased manner. MTN says porting is a difficult process and is not as easy as it has been made out to be in the media.
McGrath says MTN's primary goal is to provide clients with integrated telecommunications services, and assist them to streamline the process by using one provider.
Ported clients, who used to be on different networks, are enabled to make on-net calls, reducing the cost of services, while at the same time streamlining the administration of their corporate accounts, he says.
He adds that MTN is willing to buy out contracts should the need arise. While MTN will embark on a campaign to be seen as a preferred partner to corporate SA, there is already a groundswell of corporates looking to change, McGrath claims.
Business as usual
Vodacom would not confirm whether it is targeting corporates as potential clients to port.
Nicolene Visser, Vodacom's head of communications, says to date customers joining the Vodacom network, together with customers leaving its network due to number portability, total about 20 000.
This is less than the number of new connections that Vodacom usually activates in any one day.
As far as contract customers are concerned, Vodacom has gained twice as many as it has lost through number portability. It has lost more prepaid customers than it has gained. "Our average new connections per day are in the region of 30 000," she adds.
Cell C's head of corporate communications, Vanashree Pillay, says while there is interest in porting to Cell C, the process is hampered by the fact that interested parties are still liable for the remainder of the existing contract with their current service providers. The real picture of MNP uptake by corporate clients will become clear once their contracts are up, she says.
She adds Cell C and its joint venture partner Virgin Mobile remain net gainers since MNP was implemented in November, with 36.38% of all ported numbers coming in and 12% porting out. "Be that as it may, we have not seen any major corporate port as yet, save for lines from a few local municipalities."
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