The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released the results of its drive test conducted across East Jaintia Hills and West Jaintia Hills districts, as well as the NH-6 corridor between Ratha Cherre Khasia Punjee and Jowai in Meghalaya during March 2026. The assessment evaluated the real-world mobile network performance of Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) across voice and data services.
The drive tests covered 213 km of city routes, 98.9 km of highways, 10 hotspot locations, and 0.5 km of walk testing between March 11 and March 16, 2026.
Reliance Jio delivered the strongest overall network performance among operators. In city coverage tests, Jio recorded only 3,808 samples with poor signal strength out of 34,627 measurements, outperforming Airtel’s 5,822 poor signal samples from 34,747 measurements. BSNL reported 11,479 poor signal samples from 24,967 measurements, while Vodafone Idea recorded the highest coverage gaps with 13,632 poor signal samples from 28,300 measurements.
On highway routes, Airtel achieved the best coverage performance with 1,997 poor signal samples out of 12,407 measurements, marginally ahead of Jio’s 2,091 poor signal samples from 14,836 measurements. BSNL recorded 2,719 poor signal samples from 8,972 measurements, while Vodafone Idea reported 4,946 poor signal samples from 12,887 measurements.
Voice call quality results also favored Jio and Airtel. During city drive testing, Jio dropped only 2 calls out of 249 successfully established calls, translating into the lowest call drop count among operators. Airtel dropped 5 calls from 246 successful calls. BSNL recorded 34 dropped calls out of 164 successful calls, while Vodafone Idea dropped 30 calls from 216 successful calls.
Along highway routes, Airtel and Jio each recorded only 3 dropped calls despite establishing 62 and 76 successful calls respectively. BSNL experienced 6 dropped calls from 42 successful calls, while Vodafone Idea reported 10 dropped calls from 70 successful calls.
In data performance, Jio emerged as the clear leader. The operator delivered an average download speed of 97.89 Mbps during city testing and 122.77 Mbps on highways, significantly exceeding its declared typical download throughput of 15 Mbps. Airtel achieved average download speeds of 72.24 Mbps in city areas and 88.50 Mbps on highways, far above its declared 9.14 Mbps benchmark.
Vodafone Idea delivered average download speeds of 25.45 Mbps in city areas and 23.35 Mbps on highways, while BSNL recorded 9.54 Mbps in city tests and 4.37 Mbps on highways.
For upload performance, Airtel led all operators. The operator achieved average upload speeds of 14.50 Mbps in city testing and 20.22 Mbps on highways, substantially outperforming its declared 4.47 Mbps benchmark. Jio recorded upload speeds of 6.21 Mbps in city areas and 5.64 Mbps on highways. Vodafone Idea delivered 4.81 Mbps and 5.12 Mbps respectively, while BSNL recorded 3.85 Mbps in city tests and 2.31 Mbps on highways.
The TRAI findings indicate that Reliance Jio currently offers the strongest combination of network coverage, call reliability, and download performance in the tested Meghalaya regions, while Airtel demonstrates competitive coverage and the best upload speeds. BSNL and Vodafone Idea continue to face challenges related to coverage quality and call drops in several tested locations.
SHAFANA FAZAL