Why are newer Indian telecom companies not happy?

Telecommunication has been the second fastest growing sector (I.T being the first) in last 15 years. Airtel who started in 1995 is today one of the Asia’s largest telecom operator. Companies like Reliance, Hutch (now Vodafone) also have grown to new heights.
If biggies like them are happy with the growth, why aren’t new entrants like Uninor, S-Tel, Etilsat making money?

The spark started after Norwegian telecom operator Telenor asked its Uninor management ‘Quit India’ as they can no longer bear so high operating losses. Uninor made losses more than USD 340 million in past six months
The 2G spectrum was awarded to these operators at throwaway prices. When time has come to earn revenues, these entrants are not even able to breakeven the fees they paid for the license. The price war with the biggies is costing them dearly.
The new players had overestimated the Indian telecom sector. The present ARPUs are not even able to cover cost of acquiring a customer. The cost of acquiring new customers is roughly Rs. 250 to 300. The latest TRAI report says that majority of customers have an ARPU of Rs. 80 and they’re just 20% of the overall subscribers.

The problem aggravates with the fact that high ARPU customers are with Big Telcos and the customers acquired by the new entrants are low ARPU subscribers who will not think twice before changing the operator after the MNP is implemented.

Why don’t these companies go after consolidation?

These new entrants have no customer base, no worthy assets, just spectrum (that too 2G, none of the small operators have been awarded any 3G circle). The buyer can only be allowed to keep certain proportion of spectrum in the same circle or else it has to surrender. So consolidating with another operator in same circle is of no use.
The only way they have is surrendering their 4.4MHz spectrum to the TRAI. But why will TRAI think of returning the license fee. Does it mean that Indian telecom sector saturated? Or can Mobile Number Portability (MNP), 3G, growth of mobile VAS make a difference?
So, is this end of the road for these newer, smaller Indian Telecom Operators ?