TRAI Drive Tests Rate Mobile Quality in Kolkata, Andaman

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) published the findings of two Independent Drive Tests (IDT) on 15 October 2026. One was carried out in parts of Kolkata city and the Howrah and Hooghly districts under the Kolkata Licensed Service Area (LSA) in July 2026, the other across South Andaman district with a coastal run from Port Blair to Havelock in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which falls under the West Bengal LSA, in August 2026. Both were supervised by TRAI's Regional Office at Kolkata, and the reports have been shared with the telecom service providers for action.

How a drive test works

Live voice and data sessions are set up on SIM cards of every operator over 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G networks, using several advanced test handsets, and the sessions are watched and analysed in real time. The parameters measured are coverage gap, Call Setup Success Rate, Drop Call Rate, call setup time, call silence rate, speech quality on the MOS scale, and for data the download and upload throughput, latency, jitter and packet drop rate.

What was covered

The speeds recorded

In the Kolkata area the average download speed was 297.95 Mbps for RJIL and 255.13 Mbps for Airtel, both on 5G and 4G, against 49.06 Mbps for VIL and 7.98 Mbps for BSNL. Uploads averaged 45.64 Mbps for Airtel, 38.63 Mbps for RJIL, 12.31 Mbps for VIL and 4.35 Mbps for BSNL. In the Andaman test the download average was 77.61 Mbps for RJIL, 67.06 Mbps for Airtel, 26.54 Mbps for VIL and 7.18 Mbps for BSNL, with uploads of 20.28 Mbps, 18.01 Mbps, 10.84 Mbps and 6.13 Mbps respectively.

Calls and coverage

On the Kolkata route RJIL lost no call out of 468 established, Airtel dropped one of 466, VIL two of 462 and BSNL fifteen of 483. Coverage gaps were widest for BSNL there. In the islands the dropped calls were 5 of 266 for Airtel, 9 of 285 for RJIL, 8 of 262 for VIL and 38 of 268 for BSNL, and poor signal samples were far more frequent than in Kolkata. Hotspot locations in the islands included the Cellular Jail, Havelock Jetty and the Port Blair campus of Pondicherry University. Detailed reports are placed on the TRAI website.