TRAI recently published a report on an Independent Drive Test (IDT) that it conducted from February 20 to March 16. The aim of the test was to assess voice and data quality provided by network provides and as per the study, Airtel has the highest download throughput of 8.9 Mbps on 4G network and is followed by Jio and Vodafone with speeds of 7.3 and 4.9 Mbps respectively. It also tops with the lowest call drop rate percentage of 0.3 on 2G networks against Aircel, Idea, MTNL and Vodafone, which exhibited 5.7, 0.4, 19.5 and 0.6 percent of call drops respectively. It should be noted that the test was conducted in the Delhi license service areas of Ghaziabad, Noida, Gurugram and Faridabad.
Jio was not far behind as it was able to deliver 7.3Mbps of data download throughput, followed by Vodafone with 4.9Mbps. When it comes to web browsing and video streaming delay, Airtel’s 4G network again takes the crown with a delay of 6.7 seconds and 1.7 seconds respectively. In terms of voice calling, Jio fared well with the lowest Drop Call Rate of 0.2 percent, but only for VoLTE calling. In the same segment, calls on 3G network on Airtel, Idea and Vodafone experienced a drop of 0.3, 0.7 and 1.0 percent respectively. So, in short, Jio’s network can better handle calls with fewer drops but only where its VoLTE network is present. In other cases when you are on a 3G network, Airtel performs better, followed by Idea and Vodafone.
Some other tests like data speeds on 2G network, web browsing delay, and video streaming delay in 4G networks were also conducted. Idea outshined others in the 2G download throughput speed test with 128.7 Kbps, in comparison with Airtel and Vodafone, which exhibited 106 Kbps and 90 Kbps respectively.