Experts wondered about how the move serves the telcos in driving up ARPU | Photo Credit: SIVARAM V

Bharti Airtel’s attempts to monetise 5G network slicing via its Priority Postpaid plan has raised a larger debate on the quality owed to a user for essential services such as the internet.

Shortly after the telco’s announcement of a premium plan, many in the ecosystem questioned whether the prioritising high-paying postpaid customers violates net neutrality regulations. Conversations with businessline showed that experts unanimously agreed that the plan does not infringe net neutrality laws.

“Whatever is being offered right now is not a net neutrality violation. It is only prioritisation with respect of speech allocation to certain subscribers,” said Apar Gupta, Founder of Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF).

The real concern lies in the service quality and tier discrimination, wherein users with cheaper plans suffer slower and more congested internet within the limited spectrum owned by Airtel.

Spectrum Allocation

Airtel assured “stable and dependable experience for postpaid customers, even when traffic is high” in its announcement. Since spectrum available is limited, it’s prepaid users risk getting a degraded experience, said Mahesh Uppal, from Director at ComFirst (India).

“In India, operators have much less spectrum than their counterparts in mature markets, partly because of high costs resulting from poorly designed auctions. In that regard, the new plan is a regulatory concern since low-paying customers could experience a fall in quality,” he said.

Taking this further, telecom expert Parag Kar, wondered about how the move serves the telcos in driving up ARPU.

“Ordinary prepaid users will always be congested while premium users will enjoy good capacity. So, the former will upgrade to avoid congestion pressure. This means there will be monetisation of congestion instead of increased capacity,” he said .

Congestion Time

Kar also asked stakeholders to consider class-based discrimination in net neutrality discussions, wherein users receiving the same content are treated differently based on their plan tier. Further, he sought clarity on whether the plan will be applicable only during congestion or at all times, the safeguards involved for low-end users and built-in transparency measures and the minimum quality of service deserved by users.

“What India did for content, they will need to do for class-based discrimination,” he said.

While the new offering is not a specialised service, it doesn’t ensure reasonable traffic management. Thus, the product sits inside the main rule with no clean exemption to fall back on, said Sumeysh Srivastava, Partner at The Quantum Hub.

“India needs to decide whether we should treat Internet access as a basic utility, essential infrastructure every subscriber is entitled to at a guaranteed minimum standard, not a quality outcome left to market segmentation,” he said.

On the other side, Airtel dug in its feet before the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology that sought clarity on the Priority Premium plan and 5G network slicing on Tuesday. As per sources close to the situation, Airtel submitted that the plan hinders neither net neutrality nor user experience.

It argued there is “a clear commercial incentive” to ensure excellent service to its prepaid customers (92 per cent of total subscriber base, contributing to 88 per cent of revenue) as well as postpaid users.

“Any degradation of their experience would be counterproductive to the company’s core business,” it reportedly said.

Airtel’s eagerness to prove the compliance of its new plan is also in line with a persisting puzzle before telcos to monetise 5G. As per an industry report, viable use-cases for 5G services are currently few and far in-between with 5G slicing and FWA as some of the few legitimate options. Airtel has invested ₹83,000 crore in network upgrades over the last three years, per sources. However, its current 5G network operates at only 38 per cent capacity, with postpaid customers accounting for just 4 per cent of this usage.

The telco has argued these numbers in its favour stating that the network has extensive headroom to support enhanced experiences for all users, without service degradation. Referring to over 100 cases of network slicing across the globe, Airtel argued that 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.”

Published on May 26, 2026