Reliance Jio and Airtel emerged as the strongest performers in TRAI’s latest drive test conducted along the 189.7-km stretch from Lanka to Narainpur Railway Bridge on NH-27 and NH-627 in Assam during March 2026.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) carried out the assessment between March 10 and March 18, 2026, covering key highway routes and seven hotspot locations to evaluate the quality of mobile voice and data services offered by Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea (Vi).
In network coverage, Reliance Jio recorded the lowest proportion of poor signal samples, with 4,453 weak-signal readings out of 23,742 samples captured. Airtel followed closely with 4,820 poor signal samples from 23,981 measurements. BSNL reported 6,410 poor signal samples from 7,964 measurements, while Vodafone Idea recorded the highest coverage gaps with 10,218 poor signal samples out of 17,252 samples.
For voice performance, Airtel delivered the best call reliability. The operator dropped 9 calls out of 126 successfully established calls, outperforming Reliance Jio, which dropped 14 calls from 128 successful calls. BSNL recorded 12 dropped calls out of 37 successful calls, while Vodafone Idea experienced 21 dropped calls from 95 successful calls.
Call silence performance also favored Airtel. The operator recorded 7 calls with silence exceeding three seconds and 8 total silence instances from 123 on-net calls. Reliance Jio reported 4 silence-affected calls and 6 silence instances from 97 on-net calls. Vodafone Idea recorded only 2 silence-affected calls and 2 silence instances from 89 calls. BSNL data for call silence was not available.
Reliance Jio delivered the fastest mobile download speeds during the drive test. The operator achieved an average download throughput of 88.21 Mbps on its 5G network, significantly exceeding its declared benchmark of 15 Mbps. Airtel followed with an average download speed of 66.50 Mbps, compared with its declared throughput of 7.48 Mbps.
Vodafone Idea recorded an average download speed of 16.84 Mbps on its 4G network, while BSNL delivered 4.86 Mbps against its declared benchmark of 5 Mbps.
Airtel led the upload speed category with an average throughput of 13.63 Mbps, far exceeding its declared 1.92 Mbps benchmark. Reliance Jio achieved 6.61 Mbps upload speed against a declared 7 Mbps benchmark. Vodafone Idea recorded 3.99 Mbps, while BSNL delivered 3.10 Mbps.
The drive test covered key locations including Bamun Gaon, Dijabora, Mupa, Didaodip, Retzol, Damchara, Lumding Road, Maibang and Tiniali Bazar. Based on TRAI’s findings, Reliance Jio led overall data performance and coverage quality, while Airtel delivered the strongest voice service performance and fastest upload speeds across the tested Assam highway corridor.
SHAFANA FAZAL
