The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) conducts Independent Drive Tests (IDT) in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, to assess the quality of service provided by cellular mobile telephone service providers for voice and data services in December 2024. The results unveiled by the tests can help you to decide your next service provider and not go with what the salesperson says.

As per the drive test by the regulatory body, Vodafone-Idea (VIL) exhibits the highest percentage of call setup success rate, while Reliance Jio (RJL) topped the charts in data services with a download speed of 236.83 Mbps. This makes it way easier if you want to choose between the best call and the best data connectivity provider among the TSPs.

Drive Test

The drive test was conducted for around 355.8 km in the city and 10.8 km on foot. A total of 6 hotspots and 3 walk test centers were identified for the drive test. The test drive noted performance for metrics including call setup success rate, drop call rate, and speech quality in calls, while data throughput, video streaming delay, and latency in data services.

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Call Setup Time

The tests showed that the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) takes a comparatively longer (2.78 seconds) time to establish the voice call. At the same time, it took Airtel, RJIL, and VIL 0.51, 0.60, and 0.50 seconds, respectively, to set up a call in open mode (5G/4G/3G/2G).

Finally, talking about the quality of the call, MOS was also recorded for VIL (4.64) and Airtel (4.00), which is more or less higher than or equal to 4, while the same for BSNL (2.69) and RJIL (3.88) are less than 4.

Data Speed

As mentioned earlier, Reliance Jio exhibited the highest download speed of 236.83 Mbps coupled with an upload speed of 20.49 Mbps. At the same time, Bharti Airtel exhibited a download speed of 151.65 Mbps and 30.78 Mbps in uploading. BSNL and VI, currently running on 3G/4G as the latest technology, exhibit 3.86 Mbps & 32.99 Mbps in downloading and 4.27 Mbps and 18.87 Mbps in uploading during the tests.

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Make sure to choose your next SIM card based on what you want from it, whether data, a call, or both.