It's less than a month before portable wireless numbers make their debut, but consumers wouldn't know it from the cellphone carriers' advertising.
Recent ads steer clear of the dreaded subject — wireless number portability (WNP). They tout the latest deals or cutting-edge services rather than the fact that for the first time on March 14, consumers will be able to take their cellphone number with them when they switch carriers.
The lack of advertising, however, shouldn't be surprising. Some observers predict the move could lead to an uptick in so-called churn, or customer turnover, as unhappy subscribers, who are wedded to their phone number, head for the exit signs.
As a result, the carriers, including the small guys, won't aggressively take advantage of the WNP opportunity, Genuity Capital Markets analyst Dvai Ghose predicted last month in a note to clients.
“This is because each of the carriers seems to have much to lose and little to gain through an increase in industry churn,” Mr. Ghose wrote.
How do the carriers explain their silence? They say it's not in their interest to show their cards too early.
“It's no different than any marketing strategy,” Darren Entwistle, chief executive officer of Telus Corp., one of Canada's three big wireless carriers, explained last week in an interview. “It's not something typically you would unveil in advance.”
But also, it's not a change that the carriers, which include Bell Canada and Rogers Communications Inc., are rolling out on their own initiative. Two years ago this month, the former Liberal government asked the federal telecommunications regulator to implement portable wireless numbers. The United States, in contrast, introduced them at the end of 2003.
Still, the carriers know the majority of their clients are locked into contracts that last anywhere from one to three years. Subscribers would have to pay financial penalties for the right to walk away from these contracts.
As a result, the WNP battle may not begin in earnest on March 14, but instead in coming months as customers' contracts come up for renewal, observers say.
“The game is not going to be won and lost in the first week or first month,” said Brahm Eiley, president of Convergence Consulting Group Ltd. in Toronto. “It's going to be over time given the long-term nature of contracts.”
Kevin Restivo, an analyst at telecom consultancy SeaBoard Group, agrees. “We're not going to see any kind of all-out war for customers come March 14,” he said. “The lack of advertising is a reflection of that strategy.”
But it's not only the big guys who are silent on this issue. There hasn't been a peep recently from new entrants such as Virgin Mobile Canada, which pushed for the move.
Virgin Mobile Canada plans to focus its marketing efforts closer to the WNP start date. As a smaller player with more limited resources, Virgin Mobile Canada says it needs to prioritize each investment.
“We don't want to get people all excited about switching and then they can't switch,” said Virgin Mobile Canada CEO Andrew Black.
Virgin Mobile Canada is an upstart partly owned by Bell that likes to describe itself as a force of change. The carrier already has a tongue-in-cheek website about WNP (www.freethenumbers.ca) that's been up and running for a year. It tells visitors about all the countries that have been liberated from locked-in numbers and advises them not to sign contracts.
One marketing message the carriers appear to agree on is improving customer service and network quality.
