Airtel defends 'Priority Postpaid' service before DoT panel, denies net neutrality

Bharti Airtel has defended its new "Priority Postpaid" service before a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) panel, asserting that the offering, powered by 5G network slicing, neither violates net neutrality norms nor degrades service quality for prepaid users.

According to the submission made by Airtel in response to a clarification sought by the Committee on Communications and Information Technology, 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.

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

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

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.