The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released its independent drive test (IDT) findings for the Kolkata licensed service area (LSA), covering extensive city routes in Kolkata city and parts of Howrah and Hooghly districts under Kolkata telecom district and Kolkata metro railway route (blue line, orange line, purple line and green line) in July 2025. The drive tests, conducted under the supervision of the TRAI regional office, Kolkata, were designed to capture real-world mobile network performance across diverse usage environments- urban zones, institutional hotspots, rural residential areas, urban rail network etc.
Between July 09, 2025 to July 24, 2025, TRAI teams conduced detailed tests covering 379.1-kilometre (km) of city drive test, 58.7 km of metro railway test, 15 hotspot locations and 3.5 km of walk test. Technologies evaluated included 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G, reflecting the service experience of users across multiple handset capabilities. The findings of the IDT have already been intimated to all the telecom service providers (TSPs) concerned.
Key parameters assessed:
a) Voice services: call setup success rate (CSSR), drop call rate (DCR), call setup time, call silence rate, speech quality (MOS), coverage.
b) Data services: download/upload throughput, latency, jitter, packet drop rate, and video streaming delay.
The overall mobile network performance in Kolkata city, Howrah and Hooghly districts under Kolkata telecom district and Kolkata metro railway routes is summarised below:
CSSR- Bharti Airtel, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) and Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) have CSSR of 100 per cent, 90.49 per cent, 99.89 per cent and 99.78 per cent respectively in auto-selection mode (5G/4G/3G/2G).
DCR- Airtel, BSNL, RJIL and Vi have DCR of 0.22 per cent, 4.56 per cent, 0.33 per cent and 0.11 per cent respectively in auto-selection mode (5G/4G/3G/2G).
5G data services delivered maximum average download speed of 310.06-megabits per second (Mbps) and maximum average upload speed of 45.30 Mbps in city drive.
Along the metro rail route, high DCR was measured in the blue Line (Dakshineswar to Kavi Subhash) with values of 6.90 per cent for Airtel, 17.86 per cent for BSNL, 6.67 per cent for RJIL and 3.57 per cent for Vi. Average data download speed in the blue Line was measured with values of 154.12 Mbps for Airtel, 5.55 Mbps for BSNL, 135.57 Mbps for RJIL and 23.16 Mbps for Vi.
In Kolkata city and parts of Howrah and Hooghly districts under Kolkata telecom district the assessment included the areas of Behala, Majherhat, Rasbihari Avenue, Hajra More, Tapsia, Ballygunge, E M Bypass, Garia, Jadavpur, Tollygunge, Alipore, College Street, Beleghata, Sealdah, Howrah Bridge, Shibpur, Alampur, Dhulagar, Panchla, Chengail, Bauria, Nalpur, Rishra, Uttarpara, Srirampur, Baidyabati, Chandannagar, Mankundu, Chinsurah, Bansberia, Tribeni, Chuttipur, Balarambati, Singur, Chhinamor, Dankuni, Bankra, , Bhadrakali, Belurmath, etc.
TRAI also evaluated real-world conditions at (i) Acropolis mall sector-1 Kolkata, (ii) Belur Math, (iii) Calcutta high court, (iv) Chandannagar sub divisional hospital, (v) Dankuni railway junction, (vi) Esplanade metro station, (vii) Howrah district hospital, (viii) Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), (ix) Jadavpur University Kolkata, (x) Jaladhulagori Toll Plaza NH-6 Howrah, (xi) Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Govt. Medical College and Hospital (Jadurberia Campus), (xii) Satyanarayan Park AC market, (xiii) Sealdah metro station; (xiv) Sealdah railway station, (xv) Victoria Memorial, through static testing and at (i) Howrah railway station, (ii) New Market, and (iii) SSKM Hospital, through walk-test.
The tests were conducted using TRAI suggested equipment and standardised protocols in real-time environments.
