No rush to switch
cell phone companiesA modest number of Oahu wireless
customers have switched providers
since the debut of portability
Dee Watanabe can switch to any wireless provider in town and take her number with her thanks to number portability.
But she may not.
Browsing AT&T Wireless' downtown store, she sees little difference between its offerings and her Sprint PCS plan.
"It all looks good. Everybody has the same stuff," said the Aiea waitress.
Cell-phone providers such as Nextel, Verizon and T-Mobile have rushed to match rival product offerings over the past year as portability loomed, enticing customers to stay put with an ever-expanding array of similar new gadgets, giveaways, calling plans and minute allotments to suit any nearly anyone's needs.
And things are expected to get even better for phone users.
"We're going to see tremendous amounts of promotional activity ahead," said Albert Lin, a wireless analyst with American Technology Research.
Oahu wireless providers say only a modest number of customers have switched providers since number portability debuted in the island in November.
The option extends to the neighbor islands on Monday as part of a nationwide expansion.
Lin said the slow switching rate is due to the increasingly generous product offerings, but also to customers who are waiting for existing contracts to expire rather than pay an early termination fee that can exceed $200.
But companies are pulling out the stops to lure those freed from their contracts.
Among the generous offerings, T-Mobile offers free Samsung phones for any plan exceeding $39.99 per month, and sharply discounts camera phones when you purchase a new plan. A T-Mobile program tailored for local users allows 3,000 monthly minutes for calls anywhere in the state and has been discounted to $49.99 from $59.99.
Other providers are moving to match Nextel's walkie-talkie feature, which allows people to talk without cutting into their minutes, and everyone is coming out with an array of "family" plans that allow free calls between several different phones.
Sprint and Cingular -- which is expected to debut in Hawaii later this year through its purchase of AT&T Wireless -- have rolled back the start time for off-peak calling from 9 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Cingular is offering 500 extra minutes for customers to use if they exceed their monthly allotment.
Alan Lam, principal partner of Quorum LLC, a local independent cellular service dealer, said customers will continue to be spoiled for choice on plans and features, but he said they need also to consider the quality of a provider's coverage, or signal.
"We're seeing more competitive plans and pricing, but that doesn't always mean better service," he said.
Lam said Nextel and Verizon offer the clearest, most reliable service in Hawaii. But he and Lin agreed that if there was any carrier to avoid, it was probably AT&T, which has the poorest-quality network and is losing four out of 10 customers on an annualized basis, according to Lin.