Airtel's 5G Priority Postpaid Sparks Net Neutrality Debate

Bharti Airtel's new Priority Postpaid service has come under scrutiny for potentially violating net neutrality norms. The service, leveraging 5G network slicing, aims to offer superior service to postpaid users. Jio demands thorough examination by government authorities to ensure compliance with regulatory standards.

Bharti Airtel has defended its new 'Priority Postpaid' service before a Parliamentary panel meeting on Tuesday, asserting that the offering, powered by 5G network slicing, neither violates net neutrality norms nor degrades service quality for prepaid users, according to sources.

On the other hand, Airtel rival Jio, in its submission, has favoured the launching of such a service only after due examination by the Department of Telecom and competent government authorities against net neutrality principles.

According to the submission made by Airtel to the Department of Telecom in response to a clarification sought by the Committee on Communications and Information Technology under the Lok Sabha, the company said not allowing the use of mainstream features of 5G to offer services will jeopardise the potential of 6G in the country.

'Priority Postpaid is implemented in a content-neutral manner and is fully consistent with the existing Trai and DoT framework. There is no blocking, throttling, content-specific prioritisation, zero-rating, or preferential treatment of any application,' Airtel said in the submission.

Airtel had launched 'Priority Postpaid' plans on May 19, which promise consistent speed even in crowded markets for postpaid customers.

Airtel promises that 5G 'Priority Postpaid' will provide a fastlane to subscribers even during peak traffic time by dynamically separating a portion of the network for them from other categories of telecom services.

The launch of these plans with the fastlane facility to high-paying postpaid subscribers has triggered debate about whether such plans violate the rule of net neutrality. The principles of net neutrality were framed to defend the rights of low-paying customers to have non-discriminatory access to the internet.

Jio, in its submission, refrained from directly commenting on Airtel's Priority Postpaid but said: 'We do acknowledge that launch of such products should be done in concurrence with and post consultation with the Department'.

The telecom major said that if required, the competent government authority can also examine the specific technical arrangements, network configuration parameters, quality of service thresholds, and service level agreement terms governing the network slicing-based service offerings, to enable examination of conformance with net neutrality principles and the applicable regulatory framework.

As long as the general Internet Access Service available to users is not degraded in quality or curtailed in availability, and no content-based differential charging is being applied, the network slicing feature in 5G Standalone (SA) network slicing will be fully consistent with the aforementioned Net Neutrality regulatory provisions, Jio said.

Trai's Prohibition of discriminatory tariffs for data services regulations, 2016, bars telecom service providers from charging discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content.

Postpaid customers pay more than prepaid subscribers, in exchange for which they get higher quantities of data usage, bundled entertainment and utility apps, etc.

Airtel said that Priority Postpaid degrades the quality of service for its approximately 344 million subscribers.

'Airtel Priority feature does not degrade the quality of service for any customer, whether prepaid or postpaid,' the company said in the submission.

A query sent to Bharti Airtel and Jio in this regard did not elicit any reply.

The company said that at 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 that 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 cited several countries across the globe, such as Singapore, Malaysia, the United States and the United Kingdom, have introduced premium postpaid plans that use slicing to deliver higher effective speeds and enhanced performance in periods of congestion and their respective regulators have approved those plans.