BSNL has highest call drop rate in Hyderabad: TRAI report

 Hyderabad: The government-owned telecom company, BSNL has the highest call drop rate (3.76 per cent) which is more than the benchmark of 2 per cent in Hyderabad compared to the other private players.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a report on Independent Drive Tests (IDT) conducted in four cities, including Hyderabad, Delhi, Jaipur, and Anmednagar, during September and October 2024. TRAI, through its empanelled agency, conducted Independent Drive Tests (IDT). Drive tests were conducted to assess the quality of service provided by cellular mobile telephone service providers for voice and data services. In IDT, the performance of Bharti Airtel Ltd, BSNL/MTNL, Reliance JIO Infocom Ltd, and Vodafone Idea Ltd, providing services in a Licensed Service Area (LSA) through various technologies (like 2G/3G/4G/5G) for voice and data, has been measured by conducting a drive test.

With regard to Hyderabad, the findings of the report are that the overall BSNL's call drop rate (3.76 per cent) was higher (QoS benchmark of 2 per cent), while Reliance Jio, Airtel, and VIL have 0.3 per cent, 0.00 per cent and 0.00 per cent drop call rates, respectively.

Regarding the call silence/mute call rate, in the packet-switched network (4G/5G), RJIL (2.08 per cent) and VIL (2.06 per cent) have comparatively higher silence call rate (>2 per cent) than Airtel (1.12 per cent). It may be mentioned here that the call silence rate, or mute call rate is measured for 4G and 5G networks only.

Regarding the data download performance (dynamic), BSNL (1.28 Mbps) and VIL (20.85 Mbps), being on 3G and 4G as top technology respectively, have comparatively lower download speeds. While Airtel and RJIL have average download speeds of 119.88 Mbps and 164.19 Mbps, respectively. Similarly, for the data upload performance, BSNL (1.33 Mbps) and VIL (8.83 Mbps), being on 3G and 4G as top technology, respectively, have comparatively lower upload speeds. While Airtel and RJIL have average upload speeds of 26.76 Mbps and 20.43 Mbps, respectively. As per the report, with regard to the call setup success rate (CSSR), RJIL has a call setup success rate of 100 per cent, whereas Airtel and BSNL have 99.85 per cent and VIL has a 98.92 per cent call setup success rate, respectively. With regard to call setup time (CST)—owing to the circuit-switched network (3G/2G)—VIL has a call setup time of 11.82 seconds to establish the voice call, whereas Airtel, BSNL, and RJIL call setup times are 4.20, 2.86, and 0.75 seconds, respectively.