antitrust.co.za - Branson to lead protest march to ICASA

"Virgin Mobile Leads Cell Phone Users’ protest march on A Long Walk To Freedom!

Please do join us …

Hundreds of ‘Virginites’ & supporters will be taking to the streets of Sandton, Joburg wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Set us free with MNP”.

We know that you feel strongly about Mobile Number Portability. We invited you to join Virgin Mobile in campaigning to speed up the implementation of Mobile Number Portability (MNP). MNP has repeatedly been postponed as a result of requests by the network operators. We will be taking a long walk to freedom this Thursday 21st September 2006 @16h00 from cnr of Rivonia Street and Katherine Street, Sandton, to the head offices of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) in Katherine Street, Sandton.

The walk will culminate with the delivery of an open letter by Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Mobile South Africa founder and Chairman of the Virgin Group.

In Virgin Mobile’s experience, MNP puts the customer in the driver’s seat and allows competition to thrive. Our goal with this campaign is to bring MNP to South Africa now.

The move to MNP has been delayed by ICASA numerous times and the latest date, 18 September 2006, was moved out again, this time to 10 November 2006. It is, however, not yet confirmed whether this date too will be moved out as a result of pressure by the incumbent market players.

With your support in our “Long Walk to Freedom” we believe that MNP will be achieved sooner rather than later. Come on now, let MNP set you free!."

This is an email sent out a few hours ago by Virgin. Although Virgin has organised this specifically about MNP, we think its best to be viewed as general march to show disatisfaction with ICASA because if this march is successful it will be viewed as exactly that. We therefore urge anyone who is able to get there, to go along, take some pics, and register your satisfaction with the poor regulation of our telecoms industry.

Anyone want to sponsor some plane tickets to Jozi tomorrow to get some eager Antitrust members, please contact helpusout@antitrust.co.za.