Wireless local number portability (WLNP) finally arrived in Canada today – allowing the industry to finally catch up to what is common practice in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. In typical fashion, billionaire Richard Branson put his entrepreneurial stamp on the occasion yesterday when he escaped an exploding cage suspended above a downtown square in downtown Toronto to highlight Virgin Canada’s excitement about WLNP. The question is now how many consumers will actually move to another carrier, and how WLNP-friendly the large carriers (Rogers, Bell, Telus) will be.

Of Canada’s 18.5-million customers, the majority are on long-term contracts, which means they can’t move unless they’re willing to pay a penalty. Many customers may have to buy new phones if they move given Bell, Telus and Virgin are on a CDMA network while Rogers/Fido use GSM. It’s also unclear how easy carriers will make it to leave and how enthusiastically the carriers will pursue customers who looking for a new carrier. The Canadian wireless industry is a nice, cozy and increasingly profitable place to be so why rock the boat by going after a rival’s customers when 40% of the market is still un-penetrated?

The wild card could be Virgin, which has grown much faster than many people expected. With an estimated 400,000 customers, Virgin is shooting for one million so WLNP could be a major marketing tool to lure people away from long-term contracts to its pay-as-you, pre-paid format. One thing I do question is as Virgin expands, how will the relationship with its joint venture partner, Bell, change? You can already see some cracks in the relationship given Bell is aggressively pushing its pay-as-you-go Solo service. There have also been some street talk that Bell’s has not been thrilled about having to pump more money into Virgin.

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