Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for communicating, by a user equipment (UE), over multiple slices. A method that may be performed by the UE includes receiving, by a modem, from an operating system (OS), a request for route identifier, the request for route identifier comprising a traffic descriptor corresponding to a first application from which the request for route identifier originated. The method further includes transmitting a route identifier to the OS, the route identifier generated by the modem based on a routing policy that provides mapping between the traffic descriptor and a network route. The method further includes receiving, by the modem, a start network request comprising the route identifier. The method further includes establishing, in response to the start network request, a network connection via the network route.