Cell C, Virgin Mobile and Vodacom confirm they will not charge customers porting fees, following tomorrow's implementation of mobile number portability (MNP).
All three mobile providers say they will carry the administration fee paid to the Number Portability Company, which acts as the porting hub.
It is not known whether MTN will charge a porting fee, as the company had not responded to queries by the time of publication.
Many ICT stakeholders estimate porting would likely cost R25 to R75, although MNP regulations do not prescribe the range of fees payable.
Cell C CEO Jeffrey Hedberg says Cell C is waiving the fee to ensure the porting service is affordable to all mobile phone users.
"MNP is part of a revolution. It's our weapon in the fight against mobile injustice," says Virgin Mobile spokesman Nicholas Maweni.
Ray Webber, spokesman for the Communications Users Association of SA, previously pointed out that internationally, incumbent operators have used high porting fees and the time it takes to port to discourage consumers from porting.
With mobile operators not allowed to charge departing subscribers (as per MNP regulations) and Cell C, Virgin Mobile and Vodacom waiving their porting fees, this will be one less obstacle to MNP for South African consumers.
"We probably have Virgin Mobile and Cell C to thank for the operators waiving a porting fee," Webber says. He adds that the others were bound to follow once one operator announced it would not charge.
The bottom line
None of the mobile providers have clarified how carrying the cost of porting would impact their bottom line, and if they are likely to lose revenue in carrying this cost.
There is also a question of whether it will ultimately be worthwhile for the operator to carry the porting cost for millions of prepaid customers who could easily buy a new SIM card for a fraction of the porting fee.
However, all the providers have stated they expect to be net winners of the porting process, with MTN earlier saying: "We can't wait for the implementation of MNP."
Hedberg says Cell C expects Vodacom and MTN, which it claims are going to be the biggest subscriber losers, to tie their customers up in red tape in an attempt to prevent them from porting.
MTN and Vodacom have, however, stated they expect to be net winners of ported customers. But it is unclear what the real impact of MNP will be, as stakeholders and observers have predicted varying scenarios.
MNP regulations specify that a customer who lodges a porting request should get a response within one hour. Once the request has been granted, the user will decide on the porting date, which my take place overnight.
Webber, who plans to investigate the consumer's experience of porting, says he would be reluctant to port his personal cellphone number tomorrow, just in case "the process does not work properly and the wheels fall off".
"I would rather wait and see other people's experiences of the porting process," he says.
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