New Delhi [India], May 16 : Telecom regulator TRAI recently conducted independent drive tests across highways to assess the quality of service provided by cellular mobile telephone service providers for voice and data services.
The drive tests were conducted in March 2025.
In the voice services, the drive tests intended to assess call setup success rate, drop call rate (DCR), speech quality using MOS (mean opinion score), downlink and uplink packet (voice) drop rate, call silence rate, and coverage, according to data and report released by TRAI.
In the call setup success rate criteria, Jio and Vodafone were found to be efficient in most of those drive tests routes.
Jio stood out in the call setup time criteria in all drive test routes, meaning that the telecom operator connects voice calls in the shortest time.
In the call drop category, Airtel performed the best in the five out of seven routes. Airtel had the least call drop rates.
TRAI also analysed the call silence among the operators. Airtel was again the most efficient telecom operator.
Coming to data segment (download and upload), Jio was found to be the most high-speed data internet services provider. On the download side, Jio was the best service provider on all the routes. On the upload front, Jio was on top among these five routes, and Airtel in other two.
Notably, BSNL failed to outperform in any of the parameters vis-a-vis the rest of the telecom operators.
TRAI, through its appointed agency, conducted Independent Drive Tests (IDT) in Cities/ Highways/ Railway/ Coastal area of Nagpur city (Maharashtra LSA), Prayagraj city and railway route from Prayagraj to Kanpur (UP East LSA), Mumbai city and highway route from Mumbai to Pune Expressway, Railway route from Mumbai Central to Vasai Road and coastal area from the Gateway of India to Elephanta Caves (Mumbai and Maharashtra LSA), Ambala city (Haryana LSA), Chennai city and highway route from Chennai to Coimbatore and railway routes from Vijayawada to Chennai and Coimbatore to Chennai (Tamil Nadu LSA), Srinagar city (Jammu & Kashmir LSA) and Indore city (Madhya Pradesh LSA).
The performance of M/s Bharti Airtel Ltd., M/s BSNL/MTNL, M/s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. and M/s Vodafone Idea Ltd., providing services in a Licensed Service Area (LSA) through various technologies (like 2G/ 3G/ 4G/ 5G) for voice and data, has been measured by conducting drive test.
The observations presented in drive test reports represent the performance of the service providers on the area/ route under test on the day/ time of conducting the drive test.