Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel delivered the strongest mobile network performance in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) drive test across Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts in West Bengal, while BSNL continued to face significant coverage and call quality challenges. The drive test, conducted from June 9 to June 13, 2026, evaluated the performance of Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) across voice, data and network coverage.
TRAI’s appointed agency carried out the tests over 494.5 km of city drive routes, 16 hotspot locations, and 3.8 km of walk test routes, covering key towns including Alipurduar, Hasimara, Kalchini, Tufanganj, Dinhata, Mathabhanga, Sitalkuchi and Falakata.
Reliance Jio recorded the highest average mobile download speed of 154.29 Mbps, nearly twice Airtel’s 78.63 Mbps, while Vodafone Idea achieved 22.98 Mbps and BSNL delivered 11.81 Mbps. In upload performance, Airtel led with an average speed of 18.05 Mbps, followed by Jio at 15.59 Mbps, Vodafone Idea at 11.77 Mbps, and BSNL at 5.23 Mbps.
The drive test also highlighted notable differences in network coverage. Airtel reported the fewest coverage gaps with 2,771 poor signal samples out of 64,500, closely followed by Reliance Jio with 3,101 out of 60,695. Vodafone Idea recorded 10,964 poor signal samples out of 64,434, while BSNL showed the weakest coverage performance with 21,699 poor signal samples out of 59,947.
Voice quality results further reinforced Airtel’s strong performance. Airtel completed 453 successful calls without a single dropped call, while Reliance Jio recorded only 3 dropped calls out of 457 established calls. Vodafone Idea reported 5 dropped calls out of 450, whereas BSNL experienced 26 dropped calls out of 424, the highest among the four operators.
For call silence instances, which measure audio interruptions exceeding three seconds, BSNL performed best with 5 silence events across 352 established calls. Reliance Jio recorded 10 silence instances out of 443 calls, Airtel had 19 out of 446, and Vodafone Idea registered the highest level with 27 silence instances across 389 calls.
The IDT covered a wide range of real-world user environments, including transport hubs, hospitals, universities, tourist destinations and government offices. Hotspot testing included locations such as Alipurduar Bus Stand, Alipurduar District Hospital, Alipurduar University, Buxa Tiger Reserve, Cooch Behar Government Engineering College, Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, Jaldapara National Park, Kamakhyaguri Railway Station, Madan Mohan Temple, Mathabhanga College, Sitalkuchi BDO Office and Tufanganj Hospital.
Walk tests were conducted at Cooch Behar Government Medical College, District Court of Alipurduar, New Alipurduar Railway Station, and New Cooch Behar Junction Railway Station to assess mobile network performance in crowded pedestrian areas.
The findings indicate that Reliance Jio remains the leader in mobile broadband speeds, Airtel continues to excel in voice reliability and network coverage, Vodafone Idea delivers mid-tier performance, while BSNL still has considerable scope to improve coverage, data speeds and call reliability across Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts in West Bengal.
SHAFANA FAZAL