Airtel says its AI-powered network protection system has identified 98.4 billion suspected spam calls and 4.4 billion spam messages in the two years since its network-level spam detection system launched in September 2024. It has also blocked more than 1.62 million malicious links across its mobile and broadband networks.
The numbers show how spam has evolved from simple nuisance calls into a wider security problem. Scammers increasingly use calls and messages to direct users toward phishing pages, fake customer support numbers and other methods designed to steal credentials, OTPs and money.
Airtel’s Safe Network initiative is designed to detect these threats within the network instead of relying entirely on users or third-party apps to identify them.
The 98.4 billion figure represents suspected spam calls, not confirmed fraud. Not every unwanted call is necessarily a scam, but the scale shows how much suspicious communication is moving through telecom networks.
Based on Airtel’s two-year figure, the system has identified an average of around 4.1 billion suspected spam calls every month, along with about 183 million spam messages.
The wider industry is seeing similar volumes. Government data for the first quarter of FY2026-27 shows that telecom operators received 721.79 billion incoming calls, of which 22.99 billion were flagged as suspected spam. Out of 836.31 billion incoming SMS messages, 1.44 billion were flagged.
This is one reason telecom operators are increasingly using AI and network data to identify suspicious behaviour at scale.
Airtel has added several layers to its Safe Network initiative. Its malicious-link detection system checks URLs and blocks suspicious websites at the network level. Airtel says it has blocked more than 1.62 million malicious links delivered through SMS, messaging platforms, emails and browser redirects.
The company has also introduced protection against OTP-related fraud and a business name display feature that can help users identify calls from verified enterprises.
These features target different stages of a typical scam. A fraudster may first contact a user through a call or message, then send a malicious link or attempt to convince the victim to share an OTP. Detecting more than one part of that process gives the network a broader role in preventing fraud.
The scale of telecom spam comes against a broader increase in digital fraud in India.
According to government data, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal recorded more than 5.38 million cyber fraud complaints between FY2023-24 and FY2025-26. The amount reported in these complaints exceeded ₹56,087 crore.
The government’s Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System had also helped save more than ₹11,158 crore across over 3.28 million complaints as of June 30, 2026.
These figures cover a much wider range of cybercrime than spam calls, so they cannot be directly compared with Airtel’s numbers. They do, however, show the growing financial impact of online fraud.
The important change is that telecom operators are moving beyond simply carrying calls, messages and internet traffic. Their networks are increasingly being used to detect suspicious activity before it reaches the user.
This gives operators an advantage because they can analyse patterns across millions of connections. A single user may not recognise that several different numbers are part of the same scam campaign, while a network can potentially identify those patterns.
There is also a limit to this approach. AI systems identify suspected spam, which means legitimate calls can potentially be flagged as well. This makes accuracy important, particularly for businesses and services that make large numbers of genuine calls.
Network-level protection is therefore unlikely to replace user awareness, banking security systems or law enforcement. Instead, it adds another layer between scammers and their targets.
Airtel’s numbers show why that layer is becoming increasingly important. With billions of suspicious calls and messages being identified, telecom networks are becoming an active part of India’s fight against digital fraud rather than simply the infrastructure through which those scams travel.
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