During September-October 2024, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) conducted independent drive tests (IDT) through its empanelled agency, in four cities including New Delhi [Delhi licensed service area (LSA)], Jaipur (Rajasthan LSA), Ahmednagar (Maharashtra LSA), and Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh LSA). Drive tests were conducted to assess the quality of service provided by cellular mobile telephone service providers for voice and data services.
In IDT, the performance of Bharti Airtel, Bharti Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL)/ Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance Jio Infocom Limited and Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), providing services in an LSA through various technologies (like 2G/ 3G/ 4G/ 5G) for voice and data, was measured by the tests.
The key performance indicators (KPIs) for voice as well as data service assessed for the networks of all telecom service providers operating in the region included call setup success rate, drop call rate, speech quality using mean opinion score (MOS), downlink and uplink packet (voice) drop rate, call silence rate and coverage- signal strength, under voice services. Meanwhile, data throughput (downlink and uplink both), packet drop rate (downlink and uplink), video streaming delay, latency and jitter, under data services were considered.
In New Delhi, tests covered 635 km within the city and 210 km of metro routes. As per the report, Jio has a lower call setup success rate of 94 per cent, indicating that a higher percentage of call attempts fail. In comparison, both Airtel and Vi have a call setup success rate of 99.25 per cent, reflecting their highly reliable call connection processes. Further, MTNL had the longest call setup time (3.27 seconds), while Jio and Airtel were quicker at 0.73 seconds and 0.82 seconds respectively.
The report mentioned that MTNL had the highest call drop rate at 7.23 per cent. In addition, Jio and Vi had a poor performance in terms of call drops with 0.23 per cent call drop rate. However, Airtel outperformed both telcos with call drop rate of 0.12 per cent. Jio also struggled with call silence or call mute issues. The report noted that Jio had the highest mute rate at 3.01 per cent, indicating that a significant percentage of its calls experience silence after being established. In comparison, Airtel reported the lowest mute rate at just 0.55 per cent, highlighting its superior call audio performance. Further, Vi had a mute rate of 2.34 per cent, though faced fewer issues than Jio, it still encountered notable audio problems during calls.
The report further highlighted that Jio leads with 231.82 Mbps download speed, followed by Airtel at 171.44 Mbps, while MTNL and Vi lagged at 3.71 Mbps and 14.45 Mbps. Upload speeds of Airtel, Jio, MTNL and Vi stood at 34.37 Mbps, 23.91 Mbps, 1.67 Mbps and 4.59 Mbps respectively. Furthermore, for voice quality, Airtel and Vi scored above 4, while Jio and MTNL were below 4.
In Jaipur, Jio and Vi had a 100 per cent call setup success rate, surpassing Airtel (99.90 per cent) and BSNL (98.92 per cent). Call setup times were quickest for Vi and Jio at 0.39 seconds and 0.69 seconds respectively, while BSNL lagged at 3.33 seconds. Meanwhile, BSNL had the highest call drop rate at 2.48 per cent, while Jio had the lowest mute rate at 0.12 per cen) compared to Vi and Airtel at 0.24 percent each. For voice quality, Vi scored highest (4.63), followed by Airtel (4.02), Jio (3.96), and BSNL (2.18). In data performance, Jio led with 356.68 Mbps download and 46.17 Mbps upload speeds, followed by Airtel at 216.93 Mbps download and 44.83 Mbps upload. BSNL had 3.12 Mbps download and 2.37 Mbps upload speed while Vi had 32.40 Mbps download and 14.27 Mbps upload speed.
Moreover, in Hyderabad, Jio had a 100 per cent call setup success rate, ahead of Airtel (99.85 per cent) and BSNL (98.92 per cent). Jio had the quickest setup time (0.75 seconds), while Vi was the slowest (11.82 seconds). Call drop rates were near zero for Jio, Airtel, and Vi, but BSNL stood at 3.76 per cent. Jio and Vi had higher mute rates (2.08 per cent and 2.06 per cent), compared to Airtel’s 1.12 per cent. For speech quality, Airtel (3.98) led voice quality scores, followed by Jio (3.81), VI (3.72), and BSNL (2.66). Jio dominated data performance with 164.19 Mbps download and 20.43 Mbps upload speeds, while Airtel followed at 119.88 Mbps. BSNL lagged at just 1.28 Mbps download speed.
In Ahmednagar, Airtel had a 100 per cent call setup success rate, followed by Jio at 99.70 per cent. Vi (88.24 per cent) and BSNL (94.41 per cent) lagged. Airtel (0.60 seconds) and Jio (0.80 seconds) had the fastest call setup times, while BSNL (2.49 seconds) and Vi (1.13 seconds) were slower. Call drop rates were negligible for Airtel and Jio but higher for Vi (0.31 per cent) and BSNL (7.11 per cent). Jio led in data performance with a 251.13 Mbps download speed, followed by Airtel at 135.59 Mbps, while Vi (44.20 Mbps) and BSNL (2.08 Mbps) lagged. Airtel had the lowest mute call rate (0.23 per cent), while BSNL was highest at 2.77 per cent.
