The barrier for switching operators may have been lifted last month but less than one per cent of local mobile phone subscribers have defected under the new regime.

According to statistics disclosed yesterday by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), some 38,000 users have chosen to 'port' their cellphone numbers at the end of last month, two weeks after the introduction of true mobile number portability on June 13.

Unlike the call-forwarding system that was previously used, IDA's new mandate allows users to keep their phone numbers when they change operators without having to obtain a new line. With the old method, which was implemented in 1997, subscribers had to contend with two phone numbers and they could only forward voice calls from the old to the new, and not their text and multimedia messages.

Most industry watchers had expected the dawn of true mobile portability to cause an initial spike in so-called churn rates in the telecommunications sector, or increase the percentage of subscribers who jump ship. This number has been hovering around one to two per cent in recent years but was projected to go as high as 15 per cent when the new regime kicked in.

In stark contrast, IDA's statistics showed that only 0.6 per cent of Singapore's hand phone user base of 6.08 million took advantage of the new system last month. Excluding 31,500 former call-forwarding users who were forced to migrate, there were only 6,500 new porting requests, the regulator revealed.

'Since the performance and services of the networks are pretty much the same, users will not change operators unless there's financial benefit for them. So unless the operators start offering real deals to users, mobile number portability will remain quite stagnant,' said Alex Chau, a senior research manager with technology research firm IDC.

'To some extent, I think the operators' pre-emptive measures before the launch of mobile number portability have helped to lock in customers,' added Soh Siow Meng, a senior analyst from Current Analysis.

Other market watchers contacted by BT felt that a combination of low consumer awareness and ongoing contractual obligations could have also led to the early tepid response.

'More importantly, none of the telcos has actually made any price adjustments to their subscription plans, thus reducing the risk of a debilitating price war,' OCBC research analyst Carey Wong said in a research note earlier this week.

While subscribers are not defecting en masse just yet, the IDA maintains that they have already benefited as true mobile number portability has forced local telcos to step up their game.

'As a result, consumers have been able to enjoy added convenience and even lower barriers to switching operators. Consumers in general are also able to choose from a wider range of innovative service plans and products at competitive prices,' an IDA spokesperson said.

Indeed, all three operators - SingTel, StarHub and M1 - have launched a marketing blitz and lowered the selling prices of new phone models by increasing their handset subsidies from around $300 to $400 to as much as $600.

In addition, they have introduced new plans such as M1's DIY package which allows consumers to pick the services they want on top of their baseline voice subscription. StarHub is offering free mobile broadband with its fixed-line Internet packages, while SingTel will be banking on its timed-exclusive deal for Apple's 3G iPhone to swing more mobile subscriber votes in its favour later this year.