The affected subscribers can be transferred to other mobile operators, J.S. Sarma, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), told a television channel, after the court ruling.
Mobile number portability (MNP), which is in full force across the country, will help customers migrate without much trouble to an operator unaffected by the order, Sarma said.
He further added subscribers can port out in four months time, but the only catch is that any subscriber under present regulation cannot port out if he has been a customer for only 90 days.
"Basically, the time period of four months is the time for government to decide to come up with a enhanced market mechanism. After four months, as the licences of the firms are cancelled, their customers will obviously have the choice of opting for another player through MNP," Rajan Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association Of India (COAI), said.
India had 893.84 million mobile connections as of December end.
The apex court, while cancelling the licences said the whole allocation process was done in an arbitrary manner. It slapped a cost of Rs.5 crore each on Unitech, Swan Telecom and Tata Teleservices and said half of that will go to the court's legal aid services and the remaining to defence services.
The Supreme Court ruled that the status quo will remain for four months for operators that hold 122 telecoms licences issued after January 2008, a lawyer on the case said on Thursday, after the court quashed all the 122 licences.
The Supreme Court has also asked the government to decide on issuing fresh telecoms licence norms within four months, said the lawyer, who declined to be identified.
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