TRAI Drive Test Grades Mobile Networks in Balasore City

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made public the findings of an Independent Drive Test (IDT) carried out in and around Balasore city in the Odisha licensed service area for the month of August 2026. The results were released on 7 October 2026 for the information of ordinary telecom users.

How the test was done

TRAI's appointed agency drove a city route of 345 km and covered 7 hotspot locations between 18 and 20 August 2026, with the work supervised by the regulator's regional office at Hyderabad. Live voice calls and data sessions were run on SIM cards of every telecom service provider over 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks using several advanced test handsets, and the sessions were watched and analysed in real time. The route took in Januganj, Mallikashpur, Remuna, Soro, Nilagiri, Jaleswar, Baliapal and other places around Balasore. The seven hotspots were the Balasore bus stand, Chandaneswar temple, the government district hospital, Jaleswar railway station, K K S Women College, the main market and Max Mall.

What is measured

For voice, the drive test records the coverage gap, call setup success rate, drop call rate, call setup time, call silence rate and speech quality measured as the Mean Opinion Score. For data, it records download and upload throughput, latency, jitter and the packet drop rate. A coverage gap is the share of samples where signal strength fell below the minimum prescribed for the technology in use.

The Balasore readings

On poor signal strength during voice testing in auto-selection mode, the samples were 1,029 of 43,646 for Airtel, 6,758 of 41,512 for BSNL, 948 of 42,851 for Reliance Jio and 7,002 of 42,776 for Vi. Samples with limited service were 301 for BSNL and 61 for Vi, and nil for the other two operators. Dropped calls stood at 4 of 393 established calls for Airtel, 11 of 356 for BSNL, 3 of 387 for Reliance Jio and 8 of 390 for Vi. Instances of call silence longer than three seconds were 5 of 375 for Airtel, 31 of 356 for BSNL, 6 of 372 for Reliance Jio and 9 of 376 for Vi.

Why it matters

The drive test shows how networks actually behave on the ground rather than on paper, and the readings hold only for the route and the hours tested. TRAI has shared the findings with the operators concerned so that they can act on the weak spots, and the detailed report is placed on the regulator's website. Such tests are run in cities, hotspots and public transport hubs so that subscribers can compare operators and the companies face pressure to improve the quality of service.