The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released its independent drive test findings for the Kottayam Licensed Service Area following assessments conducted under the supervision of the TRAI Regional Office, Bengaluru. The tests were carried out from 10 February 2026 to 13 February 2026 over 503.9 km of routes, including 306 km of city drives, nine point two km of walk tests, twelve point four km of coastal drives and 176.3 km of highway drives, with standardised protocols and TRAI calibrated equipment.

Technologies evaluated included second, third, fourth and fifth generation mobile networks to capture user experience across different handset capabilities in urban zones, institutional hotspots, public transport hubs and high speed corridors. The assessment covered neighbourhoods across the district and real world locations such as the district collectorate, the government medical college hospital, the railway station, main bazaar, bus stand, a major mall, municipal park, stadium and temple, and the findings have been intimated to the telecom service providers for remedial action.

Performance metrics for voice services showed that Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) and Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) recorded call setup success rates of 99.84 per cent, 89.02 per cent, 100.00 per cent and 98.92 per cent respectively in auto selection mode. Drop call rates for the same operators were 0.16 per cent, 7.53 per cent, 0.31 per cent and 0.47 per cent respectively and call setup times averaged one point two three seconds, two point zero five seconds, zero point five eight seconds and zero point seven eight seconds respectively. Mean Opinion Score representing typical voice quality was recorded as four point zero four, three point one zero, four point five eight and four point five two respectively.

Data performance varied markedly, with overall average download speeds of 149.07 Mbps for Airtel, 10.33 Mbps for BSNL, 318.34 Mbps for RJIL and 22.95 Mbps for VIL, and corresponding upload speeds of 25.56 Mbps, 4.41 Mbps, 26.78 Mbps and 18.71 Mbps. Latency at the median varied between 25.80 ms and 58.85 ms across operators and hotspot and coastal routes showed higher instances of poor signal strength for some operators, with coastal data poor signal observations notably elevated in specific cases. The authority indicated that detailed results are available on the TRAI website and that the concerned providers have been asked to take corrective measures.