NEW DELHI – Telecom regulator TRAI on Monday released findings from independent tests in Hubballi, Karnataka, showing sharp differences in network quality among the country’s major operators.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said its drive and walk tests, conducted in August, assessed the performance of voice and data services across Airtel, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) and Vodafone Idea (VIL). The checks covered 249 km of city routes, 261 km of highways, 10.5 km of walk tests and nine hotspot locations.
On call services, Jio recorded the highest call setup success rate at 99.64% and the lowest drop rate at 0.71%. Airtel followed with 93.30% and 1.66% respectively. BSNL and Vodafone lagged, with BSNL posting an 87.88% call setup success rate and the highest drop rate of 4.96%, while Vodafone registered 86.11% and 2.09%.
Voice quality, measured on a five-point mean opinion score (MOS), ranged from 3.02 for BSNL to 3.94 for Airtel. Vodafone and Jio scored 3.78 and 3.75 respectively.
For mobile internet, Jio and Airtel delivered the strongest overall speeds. Jio recorded an average download rate of 244.78 Mbps and Airtel 141.74 Mbps, compared with 20.62 Mbps for Vodafone and 1.33 Mbps for BSNL. Upload speeds averaged 40.25 Mbps for Airtel, 25.41 Mbps for Jio, 13.62 Mbps for Vodafone and 2.70 Mbps for BSNL.
At designated hotspots, Jio’s 5G network reached 354.49 Mbps download speeds, while Airtel’s 5G clocked 177.98 Mbps. Vodafone’s 4G peaked at 31.65 Mbps, and BSNL’s 4G at 1.72 Mbps.
Latency, another key measure of internet performance, was lowest for Jio at 22.8 milliseconds, followed by Airtel at 23.8 ms, Vodafone at 27.6 ms and BSNL at 51 ms.
The tests were carried out in varied environments including residential neighbourhoods, government offices, markets, hospitals, bus stands and high-traffic highways, TRAI said. The regulator used calibrated equipment and standard protocols to measure service quality across 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks.
TRAI said it has shared the results with the telecom service providers for further action. The regulator conducts such independent drive tests in different cities to monitor compliance with quality-of-service standards and to reflect the real-world experience of mobile subscribers.
India had over 1.15 billion wireless subscribers as of June 2025, according to TRAI data. The regulator has in recent years stepped up monitoring of network quality amid rapid 5G rollouts and persistent consumer complaints about call drops and inconsistent data speeds.
