This may be a reality, but churn rates will be lower than expected, says Jacques du Toit, director at Orion Telecom, which develops, installs and supports a range of products and services that aim to reduce the cost of telecommunications for business. Industry pundits are predicting a churn rate of up to 20%; in reality it is likely that only around 5% of consumers will port to an alternative network, he says.
 
Number portability allows consumers to choose another network provider without having to change numbers, aiming to bring benefits to consumers as a result of more choice and competition in the local telephony market.
 
Du Toit cites convenience as a major factor in determining churn rates. Over 90% of new connections across the board every month are pre-paid customers. These consumers have no need or desire to go through the hassle of porting. They will simply throw their old SIM card out and get a new number.
 
Du Toit points to Vodacoms scrapping of one million inactive prepaid users from its network as evidence of the ease with which consumers buy new start-up packages whenever they need a number. In addition, the cost of migrating from one provider to another is an obvious concern for consumers. As yet, this remains an unregulated area.

On the contract side, says Du Toit, the majority of subscribers are locked into contracts to which they have committed, and they will not be able to break the terms of those contracts very easily. You have to remember too, that both the service provider letting go of the client and the one taking on the client have to agree on the process. An operator will be able to refuse number migration if there are outstanding monies owed, or if there is a billing dispute. Furthermore, consumers will not be able to port their numbers more than once every two months, so they will have to weigh up the pros and cons of entering into yet another commitment.
 
Neither the networks nor the service providers want to lose money, so we can expect to see lots of cash being pumped into retention marketing, which is great news for consumers, Du Toit notes. Call centres in particular will be bolstered, but we can also expect the increased competition to benefit the consumer as a result of better customer service, and lower contract costs and call rates, as both service providers and network operators fight to retain their market share. This is another factor which is certain to ensure that market churn remains low, he concludes.