Telecom operators Telenor, Videocon and Tata Teleservices, which collectively have about 10 million subscribers in the circles where their licences expire next month, are among the nine telcos whose mobile permits were cancelled by the Supreme Court in February this year in the 2G-spectrum allocation case. The affected operators have permission to use their allocated spectrum till January 18.
In a recent re-run of the auction, Norway's Telenor was able to secure airwaves in only six circles, excluding Mumbai, Kolkata and West Bengal where it has nearly 7.5 million customers.
Similarly Videocon, which managed to retain permits in six regions, will have to shut down GSM operations in 11 circles including the key markets of Mumbai, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kolkata, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, which together account for its nearly 1.7 million users.
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