Priority postpaid plans compliant with net-neutrality norms: Airtel

The telecom operator told the government its priority postpaid plans are compliant with TRAI and DoT norms and do not degrade service quality for prepaid users

Telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has defended its priority postpaid service plans against allegations that it was violating net neutrality norms, to the department of communications. 

 

The service was fully compliant with regulations issued by telecom regulator Trai and the government, it said. The Sunil Mittal backed company has offered to share live network data with authorities and be accountable for quality-of-service benchmarks. 

 

“Airtel’s implementation is fully compliant with Trai and DoT (Department of Telecommunications) norms. It is content-neutral and involves no blocking, throttling, preferential treatment, or zero-rating,” the country’s number two carrier is learnt to have told the government, sources aware of the communication said. 

 

“The company has affirmed its readiness to be accountable for quality-of-service benchmarks and to collaborate closely with regulators in setting guardrails that uphold innovation while protecting consumer interest. Airtel also remains committed to sharing live network data with authorities to transparently demonstrate the positive impact of Priority Postpaid,” said in a note to the government shared by executives, following a meeting last week. 

 

The telco, which last week upgraded all postpaid customers to priority plans, argued that the service did not throttle or degrade the experience for its prepaid customers, forming the majority of its 368 million customers in the country. 

 

"There is also a clear commercial incentive for Airtel to ensure prepaid customers — who make up 92 per cent of the subscriber base and contribute 88 per cent of revenue — receive excellent service. Any degradation of their experience would be counterproductive to the company’s core business," it added. According to the latest earnings report, Airtel has 29-30 million customers on postpaid, making up 7-8 per cent of its mobility user base and contributing around 12-13 per cent of mobility revenue. Any shift from prepaid to postpaid will bolster Airtel’s revenues. 

 

Airtel executives met top officials in the telecom ministry last week after the Committee on Communications and Information Technology sought a clarification from the telco. In its letter, the carrier said priority postpaid was powered by 5G network slicing without, but did not violate net neutrality norms. 

 

“Network slicing is the only proven large-scale monetisation model on 5G today and is foundational to future 6G networks. For India to stay competitive, embracing such technology advancements is essential,” the company’s communication added. 

 

Reliance Jio, in submissions to the committee, has also backed 5G slicing nothing that it was a standardised technology capability of 5G SA networks that can cater to diverse public-interest connectivity requirements, which was also permitted by existing Indian regulations. The carrier is learnt to have said that using different slices for different business class or verticals meet the net neutrality requirements but differential charging based preferential slicing within any class should be done only if it is justified under transparent, application-agnostic, technically justified traffic management requirements. Authorities can seek specific implementation details and technical arrangements relating to network slicing-based service offerings, to assess conformance with net neutrality principles, it is learnt to have added. 

 

Queries sent to Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio did not elicit a reply as of Tuesday evening. 

 

5G slicing denotes the method of creating segments within a telecom carrier network for specialised use, such as fast lanes with low latency or dedicated lanes ensuring all time connectivity. 5G slicing based services are prevalent in markets like Singapore, the US, the UK and Malaysia. 

 

Airtel said present overall 5G capacity utilisation is around 38 per cent in busy hours. Within this, postpaid traffic accounts for only about 4 per cent, which, after the introduction of a virtual "tunnel" (slice) for Priority Postpaid, may move to around 6 per cent, the company said.

 

It said prepaid and other non-priority traffic continues to have additional headroom to roughly 60 per cent of total capacity, making it clear that priority postpaid does not and cannot cause degradation for prepaid users. 

 

Airtel's priority postpaid plans start from Rs 449 for a single user, and go up to Rs 1,749 for five users or family, offering unlimited data and calling. The individual plan offers free access to Airtel Xstream Play, its OTT app, Adobe Express Premium and 100 GB of cloud storage. Higher costing plans add access to Amazon Prime, Jio Hotstar, Apple TV, Apple Music, with the highest tier offering all of these plus Netflix.