Airtel Launched Priority Postpaid - India's First Network Slicing AI Network

Airtel Priority Postpaid

Globally it is believed that odds of 'G' are not successful commercially, as 1G, 3G and now 5G - as investment did not give much pleasure to the revenue book. However as 6G is not coming til 2028-2030, I guess operators are looking ways to make money out of 5G. 

Earlier I explained how Jio leveraging their deployment of 5G-Standalone (5G-SA) technology to launch its Air Fiber services and has become world's largest operator on Fixed Wireless Access (5G-FWA) in July last year. Jio expanded its FWA services with UBR (unlicensed band radio) over 5GHz band. 

Frankly speaking in the FWA market, Jio is way ahead of Airtel. So Airtel had to bring something unique to monetize 5G. Earlier in the beginning of this month of May '26, there was a news that Airtel may bring network slicing to its priority 5G customers who would get dedicated virtual "fast lanes" to provide consistent, faster connectivity for postpaid customers in high-traffic or congested areas. 

Well, Airtel, though started with 5G-NSA, has also deployed 5G-SA in selected pockets across the country with partnership with Ericsson. Without 5G-SA (where the 5G core operates independently from older 4G infrastructure) network slicing could not be done, so Airtel had to wait a bit for it. 

On May 19, 2026 Airtel announced the launch of Priority Postpaid, a new service that leverages 5G slicing technology to deliver superior and more consistent experience to customers who depend on uninterrupted connectivity for work, entertainment, or online collaboration. 

In the press release from Bharti Airtel, launching Network Slicing is dubbed as something "reflecting Airtel’s continued investment in building a smarter, more resilient, and future-ready digital network and reinforces its commitment to combining advanced technology with customer-centric innovation." It is expected to gain 20-30% more ARPU from such customers. 

Airtel claims this offering as India's first, but without network slicing Jio or Airtel could not offer speed based tariffs on their 5G-FWA. 

Commenting on the launch, Shashwat Sharma, MD & CEO – Airtel India, said, “Our focus at Airtel is on delivering meaningful innovations that enhance our customers' experience. Priority Postpaid is our latest innovation powered by the 5G slicing technology. It provides a superior, more reliable, and dependable experience to our customers — whether they are attending a client call in traffic, or streaming at a packed concert, or booking a cab in a crowded market.”

AIRTEL PRIORITY POSTPAID PLANS
Postpaid Rental (+GST)	₹ 449	₹ 699	₹ 999	₹ 1199	₹ 1749
Plan type	Individual	Family of 2	Family of 3	Family of 4	Family of 5
Base Benefits	Priority on 5G with Fastlane Technology Fraud detection and Spam alert services Unlimited data and calling 3000 SMS
Airtel Xstream Play	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Adobe Express Premium	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
100 GB Cloud Storage	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Amazon Prime	✘	✔	✔	✔	✔
Jio Hotstar	✘	✔	✔	✔	✔
Apple TV & Music	✘	✘	✔	✔	✔
Netflix	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔

Global Adoption of Network Slicing

Globally operators in USA, UK, Germany, Spain, Singapore, Malaysia, China has launched network slicing on their 5G operations. But these are mostly for enterprise segments like enterprise video calling applications, remote workforces, mission-critical automated industrial applications, stadium events, public safety sectors, maritime operations (smart ports), automated public transport systems, health care infrastructure, high-security enterprise connections etc.

The biggest question lies what is Network Slicing on 5G

If you know the technical part of 5G - it can be deployed easily with just software patch over existing 4G. That makes 5G a software defining network (SDN) and to add that cloud native operations with automation (which is often told as Artificial Intelligence driven networks). As 5G is not depended on fixed hardwares, and mostly software driven, modern 5G standalone networks virtualise many network operations. It helps operators can dynamically allocate bandwidth, latency priorities, compute resources, and traffic routing to different slices.

"A simple way to understand it is to imagine a highway. In a traditional network, every vehicle shares the same lanes. In a sliced network, operators can create dedicated lanes for emergency services, freight vehicles, public transport, or premium traffic. Importantly, these slices are not physically separate mobile towers or entirely independent networks. They are virtual partitions running on the same infrastructure."

Network slicing is widely considered one of the most distinguishing factors  that distincts 5G from previously deployed of mobile networks. While 4G primarily brought faster Internet to smartphones, 5G is designed to support vastly different types of applications at the same time. 

Huawei explains Network Slicing as: "Network slicing is a new network architecture that provides multiple logical networks on the same shared network infrastructure. Each logical network serves a specific service type or industry user. Each network slice can flexibly define its logical topology, SLA requirements, reliability, and security level to meet differentiated requirements of different services, industries, or users.

Network slicing enables carriers to reduce the cost of constructing multiple private networks and provide highly flexible network services that can be scheduled and allocated on demand based on service requirements. This improves the network value and monetization capability of carriers and facilitates digital transformation of various industries."

Example of Network Slicing (Source: Huawei)

Net Neutrality Debate Returns

But Airtel's launch of Priority Postpaid in India brings back the old debate of Net Neutrality. In 2015 Facebook's Free Basics and Airtel Zero both faced backlashes from the public and the government. Many argued that Airtel's prepaid customers and other postpaid customers may experience poor network. 

Airtel clears its stand, as wrote to DoT, "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." 

In my honest opinion, network slicing is a beauty of 5G technology, where automated priority given to a sliced network without degrading existing networks on main network. 

Airtel's rival Jio expressed their support to network slicing. Jio as wrote to DOT, said, "Network slicing-based service deployment are a legitimate exercise of 5G network capabilities, subject to compliance with the applicable provisions of the Unified License and TRAI regulations." 

Many think this support is unexpected but technically both are right to support network slicing in 5G. Jio is also running 10 sliced networks since July 2025 for the enterprise, the Internet of Things (IoT), gaming, Jio’s fixed wireless access (FWA) service JioAirFiber, and mission-critical services. The number may get more than 10 as of today, but Jio did not launch such thing for end-customers. Powered by Jio Platforms' Cloud-Native 5G Core, Jio's Network Slicing utilizes 3GPP-standardized capabilities such as the Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF) and Network Slice Admission Control Function (NSACF).

In real world, one can easily get 150-250Mbps on any 5G supported smartphone. As checked by users, Airtel is offering decent 200Mbps for regular users, while it's ~320Mbps on Priority Postpaid. Do you really need that much of speed on smartphones for daily usage?