The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released findings from its Drive Test conducted across Varanasi, Hardoi, Shahjahanpur and the Varanasi–Prayagraj railway corridor in February 2026, highlighting mobile network performance across 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G.
TRAI conducted the test covering 426.0 km of city routes, 123.2 km of railway routes and 4.2 km of walk tests between February 16 and 20, 2026, assessing network quality in urban zones, hotspots and public transport environments.
Reliance Jio achieved a perfect 100.00 percent call setup success rate, followed by Bharti Airtel at 99.86 percent and Vodafone Idea at 99.44 percent, while BSNL lagged at 91.23 percent. Drop call rates remained low overall, with Vodafone Idea recording zero percent, Airtel at 0.14 percent, Jio at 0.56 percent and BSNL significantly higher at 2.75 percent.
Voice quality, measured through Mean Opinion Score (MOS), placed Jio at the top with 4.42, followed by Vodafone Idea at 4.25 and Airtel at 3.95, while BSNL trailed at 2.54. Call setup time was fastest on Jio at 0.65 seconds, compared to Airtel at 1.21 seconds, Vodafone Idea at 1.20 seconds and BSNL at 3.93 seconds.
In data performance, Jio led with download speed of 158.48 Mbps, ahead of Airtel at 102.77 Mbps and Vodafone Idea at 38.39 Mbps. BSNL recorded a significantly lower 6.77 Mbps. Upload speeds followed a similar trend, with Jio at 20.53 Mbps, Airtel at 17.25 Mbps, Vodafone Idea at 10.33 Mbps and BSNL at 2.92 Mbps.
Latency performance showed Jio delivering the latency at 19.88 ms, followed by Vodafone Idea at 32.61 ms, BSNL at 37.56 ms and Airtel at 42.63 ms.
Signal strength analysis revealed persistent gaps, particularly for BSNL and Vodafone Idea. In city drive tests, poor signal during voice usage was observed at 23.62 percent for BSNL and 15.47 percent for Vodafone Idea, compared to 3.18 percent for Airtel and 3.91 percent for Jio. Data performance showed similar trends, with poor signal levels reaching 31.13 percent for BSNL and 32.37 percent for Vodafone Idea.
Railway route performance highlighted even wider disparities, with poor voice signal observed at 39.67 percent for BSNL and 14.75 percent for Vodafone Idea, while Airtel and Jio maintained relatively low levels at 2.19 percent and 1.44 percent respectively.
The TRAI findings underscore strong performance leadership by Jio and Airtel in both voice and data services, while highlighting the need for network improvements by BSNL and Vodafone Idea, particularly in signal strength and consistency across urban and transport corridors.
SHAFANA FAZAL