Comments on: U.S. yawns over number switching

The tumult over keeping phone numbers when switching wireless carriers never surfaces.

[hakubi]

Any industry does this

Every time US lawmakers want to make cars safer, or more fuel efficient, automakers claim it will force them to close plants and send jobs overseas. Meanwhile their lapdog, the UAW, goes and lobbies congress to make sure that "american workers are safe from unnecessary standards." Then the big three send jobs to mexico anyway. That may seem off topic, but predicting the destruction of your industry is standard practice when you feel the least bit threatened. Yet somehow analysts always seem to eat up every dramatic tale that these people hand off to them.

[baggyguy1218]

huh?

I recently bought a new phone with Tmobile. I had nextel before and the price of a nextel is not worth it so i switched. That was an experience. It took 5 days and about 2 hours on the phone with nextels porting office to get my number UNLOCKED! I need my number so I would do anything to keep it, even a little agrivation. If they say not many americans are switching just remember the contracts. 1 year 2 years, they will not pay to cancel thier phoones so they ride them out. It will be steady from now on Im sure.

Contacts?

This story hinted at, but did not focus on service contracts. This
is the reason people didn't flee their wireless carriers when their
numbers became portable. I would switch instantly if I could get
out of my contract and I'll do everything I can when I switch
services to limit the length of my next contract. I don't have to
sign a contract for my cable, my broadband, my landline, my
utilities, or any other monthly service I pay for. Cell phone
companies realize that as long as they ALL use contracts, they
avoid consumers actually shopping based on quality of service,
and instead lure them in with outrageous deals. In the end, I
think consumers are losing with contracts, and the cell phone
companies that are actually providing good customer service
and network coverage are unable to attract customers stuck in
outrageous contracts with less appealing companies.

Exactly

Since the beginning of this debate I have wondered why the effect of service contracts has been underplayed. It's the reason most consumers don't switch -- they don't want to pay the hefty penalty for defaulting on the one year or two year lock. And if you switch to a different plan within your current provider, you involuntarily extend your contract -- at least with Verizon. I would bet most people don't even know when their contract expires.

LNP -- Mission Accomplished

The tone of this article seems to imply that LNP was of little use since fewer than expected have taken advantage of it. But in the accounts they detail as well as from my own experience, people have stuck around because the carriers have gone to great lengths to keep them. The sole purpose of LNP was to IMPROVE CONSUMER VALUE by leveling the competitive landscape. Whether that's done proactively by carriers to keep customers, or the customer gets better service by taking their number elsewhere -- the net effect is the same. The customers have won! (Perhaps I should say "are winning" ... there's still plenty of room for improvement.)