Recently, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released the findings of its Independent Drive Test (IDT) for the Bihar Licensed Service Area (LSA), covering city routes in Hazaribagh district and adjoining areas, national highway corridors from Ranchi to Patna along NH-19, NH-20 and NH-22, and the railway route between Patna and Ranchi. The assessment was conducted in November 2025 to capture real-world mobile network performance across diverse usage environments.

Between 20 and 28 November 2025, TRAI teams carried out extensive testing covering 220.9 km of city drive routes, 18 hotspot locations, 2.1 km of walk tests, 327.5 km of highway drive tests and 376.9 km of railway route testing. Technologies evaluated included 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G, reflecting user experience across multiple handset capabilities. The findings have been shared with all concerned telecom service providers.

Voice services were assessed on parameters such as Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), Drop Call Rate (DCR), call setup time, speech quality and coverage, while data services were evaluated on download and upload throughput, latency, jitter, packet drop rate and video streaming delay.

In auto-selection mode, Airtel and RJIL recorded overall call setup success rates of 96.63 per cent and 99.21 per cent respectively, while BSNL and VIL reported 57.80 per cent and 82.99 per cent. Overall drop call rates stood at 0.27 per cent for Airtel, 6.79 per cent for BSNL, 0.79 per cent for RJIL and 8.73 per cent for VIL across city, highway and railway routes.

For 5G services, the maximum average download speed recorded during the overall drive test was 199.26 Mbps, while the maximum average upload speed reached 24.47 Mbps. Poor signal strength in auto-selection mode was observed across varying portions of the city drive routes, with higher incidence reported for BSNL and VIL.

The assessment covered multiple urban and semi-urban locations across Jharkhand and Bihar, including institutional campuses, transport hubs, healthcare facilities and public spaces. TRAI stated that the tests were conducted using standardised protocols and recommended equipment to reflect real-time network conditions, with the detailed report available on its official website.