Portability's anti-climax

Next Monday, wireless number portability becomes available outside of the top 100 markets and--without intending to be geographically discriminating--I have to wonder who really cares.

There undoubtedly will be some customers in those markets who have been waiting to switch carriers and keep their numbers, and they should have the freedom to do so. But portability already seems like a bust to me.

Almost three million people have switched phone numbers since portability took hold in the top 100 markets six months ago. According to some expectations, that is at least nine million fewer people than were supposed to have switched--in the opening weeks, let alone the first six months.

Certainly, you have to wonder how many people walked into a carrier retail store in the days following Nov. 24, saw the long lines and walked out, never to change carriers. But that doesn't fully explain the low number.

Maybe mobile phone customers are starting to figure out that there really isn't much separating one carrier from another. Carriers like to talk about how much competition exists in the mobile industry, but most of them haven't clearly proven how they are better than others. They promise more or less the same set of services, coverage, prices and customer experience. Even all of their TV commercials strive for the same dryly humorous tweaking of their competitors' supposed shortcomings.

Consumers now do have a choice. But if all the choices look basically the same, who cares?

E-mail me at doshea@primediabusiness.com.