Telecom operators, including Uninor and MTS, who have lost their
licences will have to inform existing subscribers within 10 days about
service discontinuation in circles where they have not won spectrum,
sector regulator TRAI on Monday said.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority
of India (TRAI) issued direction to Videocon Telecommunications,
Unitech Wireless (Uninor), Sistema Shyam Teleservices (MTS) and Tata
Teleservices to inform their subscribers in service area where there
licence will stand terminated from January 18, 2013.
The closure of services from these telecom operators will have impact around 2.6 crore customers.
The
Supreme Court on February 2, 2012 cancelled permits included Uninor's
22 licences, Loop Telecom (21), Sistema Shyam (21), Idea Cellular
including Spice Communications (13), Videocon (21), Etisalat DB formerly
Swan Telecom (15), S-Tel (6) and Tata Teleservices (3 CDMA licences).
Among
these operators, only Tata Teleservices (TTL) informed TRAI that its
services in Assam, North East and Jammu and Kashmir shall stand
terminated from mid-night of January 18, 2013. The apex court had
cancelled CDMA permits of TTL in these service areas.
TRAI has
asked all these four players to inform "all its existing subscribers, in
such service areas, either in writing or through SMS, within 10 days of
issue of this direction and every new subscriber at the time of their
enrollment to its network the date of discontinuance of its services."
The regulator has asked the four operators to provide compliance report to it within 15 days on this direction.
Uninor
in a statement said it "will issue a public notice to all its customers
in Kolkata and West Bengal requesting them to exhaust their balance by
January 18, 2013 and utilise mobile number portability to port out to
any other operator of choice."
Uninor's majority stakeholder
Telenor is in process to get its entire business transferred to new
entity, Telewings Communications which has won spectrum in six telecom
service area- UP East, UP West, Bihar (including Jharkhand), Andhra
Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra (including Goa).
Uninor, however,
said operations in the Mumbai circle are continuing as Telenor Group is
evaluating the possibility of participating in the second auction for
spectrum in Mumbai as indicated by government.
Videocon won
spectrum in 6 circles- Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, UP East
and West, while it lost permits in 21 circles.
Russian
Conglomerate Sistema-led SSTL has been waiting for hearing of its
curative petition filed in May 4, 2012 and did not participate in last
month's auction.
Among those whose licences were cancelled, Idea
Cellular won spectrum in all circles where it was required to for
continuing its operation. Loop Telecom, Etisalat DB and S Tel have
already announced closing of their operations in India.