The End of Telecom Equality

Is non-discrimination in providing telecom services, non-negotiable? Yes. But, on May 19, Bharti Airtel breached it, openly, while both Trai and DoT have remained mute spectators. After initial enquiries and explanations, both have quietened down.

Airtel created a service called “Priority Postpaid” claiming to be “delivering superior network experience for its post-paid customers”. This it claims has been achieved through “network slicing” which allows telecom operators to carve out dedicated virtual “lanes” within a physical network and allocate them to specific users or applications. Using such dedicated lanes, Airtel has started “offering postpaid customers enhanced service quality and seamless connectivity”, to specific postpaid customers discriminating against the other regular customers including pre-paid. Without any regulatory fear, they proudly announced this through a press release.