Synopsis

Bharti Airtel's FastLane premium postpaid service delivers faster download speeds, lower latency and significantly higher access to 5G standalone than standard users, according to OpenSignal. While Airtel says the feature improves network efficiency without affecting others, experts argue the findings could reignite concerns over network neutrality and prioritised access.

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New Delhi: Bharti Airtel’s contentious FastLane plan provided postpaid subscribers faster download speeds and lower latencies as compared to standard users, an independent analysis of the network-slicing-based feature found.

Experts said the findings by crowdsourced network analytics firm OpenSignal will revive the debate around network neutrality that came up during the launch of the premium plan, with rival telecom operators questioning if prioritised access to premium users would affect the service quality of standard users.

“With data now showing a clear advantage in speed, it brings back the question whether a cellular network is allowed to differentiate users on the same network through varied speeds,” an industry analyst said, asking not to be named.

An OpenSignal spokesperson said that besides “meaningfully” faster download speeds and a “modest” latency improvement, FastLane users “also connect to 5G standalone at nearly five times the rate of standard users.”

However, faster data speeds for priority users are not coming at the expense of standard users, the person said, noting that standard 5G standalone speeds remain consistent in the cities where Fast Lane shows the largest gains.

“The priority slice works by elevating FastLane users in congestion scenarios,” the person explained.

OpenSignal shared its learnings exclusively with ET.

The analyst cited above, though, said spectrum is a finite resource and operators slicing the network to prioritise high-paying customers would mean the baseline quality for standard users may inevitably drop. “It’s likely a zero-sum game where improved quality for one group negatively impacts the experience of others,” the person said.

Airtel launched Priority Postpaid in May, which was later renamed to FastLane, to offer its premium postpaid customers a differentiated experience.

The offering is based on the network slicing technology that is enabled through a 5G standalone architecture, which the telco is upgrading to, from a non-standalone architecture.

“Our 5G slicing launch with Postpaid has been in the market for eight weeks and we are happy with the delivered impact for our customers,” an Airtel spokesperson said. “Our analysis also shows that the slicing technology has improved the overall efficiency of our 5G network, increasing the overall network capacity, and benefiting all Airtel 5G customers since its launch.”

The telco, in a letter to the government in May, had said capacity utilisation on its network was only 38%, with only 4% of the capacity used by its 29 million postpaid users. As a result, there is no experience degradation for any customer, it claimed.

Airtel informed officials that data from trials and the live network, before and after the launch of the priority service, show a measurable improvement and better user experience with no degradation to any customer. “This is because our 5G network has large capacity and current utilisation is very low, so there is large and sufficient capacity for prepaid users even in high-traffic areas,” the company said.