Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has published the findings of its drive test conducted in Bathinda and Sri Muktsar Sahib cities and along the Amritsar-Bathinda railway corridor in Punjab during March 2026.
The drive test, conducted from March 16-19, 2026, covered 276.8 km of city routes, 282.8 km of railway routes and six hotspot locations. The assessment measured key quality-of-service parameters including network coverage, call setup success rate (CSSR), dropped call rate, call setup time, speech quality, call silence incidents, download and upload speeds, latency, jitter and packet loss across 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks.
Bathinda City Results
In Bathinda, network coverage gaps measured through poor signal samples were 287 out of 30,694 samples for Airtel, 7,669 out of 29,845 for BSNL, 378 out of 30,653 for Reliance Jio, and 283 out of 30,542 for Vodafone Idea.
For voice performance, Airtel recorded zero dropped calls out of 275 successfully established calls. BSNL registered four dropped calls out of 268 calls, Reliance Jio one dropped call out of 276 calls, and Vodafone Idea one dropped call out of 273 calls.
Call silence incidents lasting more than three seconds were recorded at three out of 267 calls for Airtel, one out of 266 calls for Reliance Jio, and 17 out of 268 calls for Vodafone Idea.
Average download speeds reached 198.27 Mbps for Reliance Jio, 151.88 Mbps for Airtel, 34.07 Mbps for Vodafone Idea and 14.55 Mbps for BSNL.
Average upload speeds were 18.53 Mbps for Airtel, 15.97 Mbps for Vodafone Idea, 14.19 Mbps for Reliance Jio and 5.70 Mbps for BSNL.
Sri Muktsar Sahib Results
Coverage gaps in Sri Muktsar Sahib were significantly lower for private operators, with Airtel recording 70 poor signal samples out of 10,777, Reliance Jio 148 out of 10,119 and Vodafone Idea 43 out of 10,123. BSNL recorded 2,180 poor signal samples out of 9,510.
Dropped calls stood at zero out of 91 calls for Airtel, two out of 89 for BSNL, one out of 91 for Reliance Jio and zero out of 91 for Vodafone Idea.
Call silence incidents were measured at two out of 87 calls for Airtel, three out of 88 for Reliance Jio and zero out of 87 for Vodafone Idea.
Reliance Jio delivered the fastest average download speed at 222.90 Mbps, followed by Airtel at 172.32 Mbps, Vodafone Idea at 26.51 Mbps and BSNL at 18.20 Mbps.
For uploads, Vodafone Idea led with 13.19 Mbps, ahead of Reliance Jio at 12.87 Mbps, Airtel at 11.02 Mbps and BSNL at 5.00 Mbps.
Amritsar-Bathinda Railway Route Results
Along the 282.8-km railway route connecting Amritsar and Bathinda via Beas Junction, Jalandhar City Junction, Kapurthala, Rail Coach Factory Kapurthala, Sultanpur Lodhi, Lohian Khas Junction, Makhu, Firozpur Cantonment Junction, Faridkot, Kot Kapura Junction and Gangsar Jaito, Reliance Jio and Airtel maintained strong performance.
Coverage gaps were 552 out of 21,422 samples for Airtel, 4,959 out of 20,782 for BSNL, 287 out of 21,228 for Reliance Jio and 571 out of 20,813 for Vodafone Idea.
Dropped calls were two out of 108 calls for Airtel, eight out of 109 for BSNL, zero out of 108 for Reliance Jio and zero out of 91 for Vodafone Idea.
Average download speeds reached 111.72 Mbps for Reliance Jio, 95.82 Mbps for Airtel, 18.36 Mbps for BSNL and 11.11 Mbps for Vodafone Idea.
Average upload speeds were highest for Airtel at 19.89 Mbps, followed by Reliance Jio at 16.93 Mbps, Vodafone Idea at 13.60 Mbps and BSNL at 7.82 Mbps.
Key Takeaways
The TRAI drive test showed Reliance Jio consistently delivering the fastest download speeds across urban and railway environments, while Airtel demonstrated strong reliability with very low call drop rates and competitive upload performance. BSNL continued to face substantial coverage gaps across all tested locations, while Vodafone Idea maintained low call drop rates but lagged in data throughput compared with Airtel and Reliance Jio.
SHAFANA FAZAL
